Once Upon a Marigold By Jean Ferris Release Date: Buy it Today! Harcourt Paperbacks Ratings Action Romance Characters Overall Purchase on Amazon. Purchase at Powell’s. Find independent bookstores.

Chris didn’t like his home with all its rules and punishments for making messes (inventing, his favorite pastime, is messy in its very nature), so he ran away at the age of six and made a new home with a troll and two dogs in a multi-colored crystal cave. Princess Marigold could never be touched, because her fairy gift (which turned into a curse) was that she would be sensitive to the feelings of others, though unfortunately she became so sensitive she could sense others’ thoughts and feelings via touch. On his daily traipses through the forest, Chris could see Marigold on the palace terrace, and eventually he worked up enough courage to send her a ‘p-mail’ (pigeon delivered mail), and a friendship was quickly formed.

After a year of p-mail, the two friends meet in person, just in time to thwart some suitors, stop a wedding, and, of course, prevent an evil queen from taking over the kingdom.

This was a very cute and fun to read book. There’s always something going on, the pacing keeps up through the whole novel, and the plot is interesting enough to keep me reading. This is actually the second time I read the book, but when I finally decided to review it, I figured I needed to reread. All I really remembered was that I’d enjoyed it, a feeling I still had after the second reading.

One thing that might bother a reader about the book is that while it is a fantasy world, they make plenty of current comments and jokes, like calling Marigold’s sisters blonde, but not dumb. Because the overall tone of the book was rather modern anyway, I only noticed these lines because I was reading it with my brain in review mode. If it had been a more serious fantasy book, where the author was building a complex world and culture, then these modern comments and names would have bothered me. Instead, this is just a story that happens to be set on a traditional fairytale world. Plus, the main character invents p-mail, which by the end of the book is used throughout the kingdom just like e-mail is today. Really, I think this book could have taken place in our world with some names and situations changed, but it’s more fun against a fairytale backdrop.

Marigold’s curse, on the other hand, did bother me. It’s her fairy gift, yet somehow she can break it so she no longer accidentally reads people’s thoughts? All right, I’ll buy that, except they never really talk about it, except in the vaguest terms, and then it randomly breaks thorough no conscious actions from her, so that it can conveniently save Chris. I would have liked to have seen a bit more development of the curse and some setup on to how she might break it. The other thing that bothered me was some confusion on secondary character ages. But that’s a bit of a spoiler, so I’m sticking it at the end, past the parents’ rating. Not a giant spoiler (it’s pretty clear throughout the book this is going to happen), but still a spoiler.

Ratings Reasons:
Action 3 1/2 – Fast paced. There wasn’t a lot of a swashbuckling adventure, but the book still had dire situations and inventive escapes.

Romance 4 – It’s middle grade romance, as in “he felt something strange in his chest whenever he looked at her.” (I made that line up, but it pretty accurately reflects my feelings on most middle grade romance) but it’s still cute and well thought out.

Characters 3 1/2 – I think this was one of the poorer parts of the book. The characters were interesting and enjoyable, but it was still pretty easy to see the stock characters they were built from. It would have been nice to have them be a bit more complex.

Overall 4 – This was a solidly cute and fun book. Don’t think too hard on anything and just enjoy the ride.

Extras:
Jean Ferris has written several other books that look cute, but that I haven’t read. Love Among the Walnuts looks really interesting, as do some of her other books. And better yet, a sequel called Twice Upon a Marigold is coming out this year! The release date is May 1st.

Another few books I’d recommend are Goose Chase by Patrice Kindl and Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George. Both books are similar fun fairytale worlds with a bit of adventure, romance, and self-discovery.

Ella Enchanted is also a great book with a fairy-gift-turned-curse and my default "So you like fairytale stories…" recommendation.

Parents: 10+ Readers of all age can enjoy this book.

Spoiler Rant:
I’m over thinking things again, but this bugged me the first time I read it as well. By the end, predictably, Chris finds his family… and Marigold’s older sisters are already married to his younger brothers. So how does that work? Chris and Marigold are both 17. Marigold’s sisters appear to be a few years older than her. Chris remembers his twin brothers in their bassinets, which puts him probably at 2-3 years older than them. And it’s implied (though never shown) that Marigold’s sisters have been married a few years and already have a mess of children between them. I’m sorry, but the ages just don’t seem to match up for me, unless you start figuring that his brothers got married off at 12 or so, since they’d be, at most, sixteen (more likely 14-15) at his wedding. The author could have easily fixed this by just not making Marigold and Chris the same age, but she didn’t. It’s explicitly stated that they even have the same birthday.

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