Palace of Mirrors

By: Margaret Peterson Haddix

Narrated by: Polly Lee

International Reading Association Children's Book Award winner Margaret Peterson Haddix returns to the world of Just Ella for this enchanting book about a princess in peril.

Disguised as a peasant, Cecilia has been hiding for years from the evil people who killed her parents. Now the time has come to reclaim her title. There's just one problem. Princess Desmia - supposedly Cecilia's decoy - believes a different version of the story.

©2008 Margaret Peterson Haddix (P)2008 Recorded Books, LLC

A surprising ending that I loved

Clean which is so wonderful. The plot is well developed and the characters engaging. Loved it.

Idiotic characters and plot!

*1.5 STARS
This was a reread for me but I read it about 7 years ago so didn't really remember anything about it besides the basic plot. And boy did I not really like it this time!! The first book in the series is a Cinderella retelling which is what drew me to it in the first place. This book wasn't a retelling at all which is a bit disappointing for me. Other series have managed to build off of one fairytale and create their own imaginative worlds (ie The Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale) but this book just didn't do that. It went from a strong, independent female character in the first book to about one of the dumbest characters ever in this one. Our main character is super naive, which is fine I guess. I'm a naive person too. But I'd never just walk up to a palace and expect to be made the princess just because I said it was so. "But I'm the true princess!!" Shoot me. I just could not with this book. The characters were dumb and most of them literally had no brains. Young, old, middle-aged, they were all morons alike! The only smart and tolerable character was Ella, from the first book and Harper who was completely mistreated if you ask me. I just couldn't enjoy this book with it's lacking story and characters. And everything was just resolved so easily and in a way that I don't believe in the slightest. I'm pretty sure that ending would never happen in a million years.

Interesting Book - TERRIBLE Reading

A big fan of Margaret Peterson Haddix myself, I was thrilled to see "Palace of Mirrors" on audible (a book I have never read before). I clicked play with great anticipation, but unfortunately the audio performance that followed was more than disappointing.

I listened for 30 minutes before I decided that although the story itself was engaging I was not going to let Polly Lee (narrator) ruin it for me. Her slow mechanical reading of the narration drained Haddix's words of any life. Although her dialogue-voice for the main character was passable, she seemed to be completely misinterpreting the dialogues between the characters. What is written as playful banter between friends sounds almost menacing. And Harper (whom I can only assume will be the male lead of the story) sounds like a bully which is not what the actual words being spoken imply.

I have decided that I will simply need to get this one from the library, and now I'm left only with a bitter feeling that I've wasted an audible credit. I recommend you do the same, or at least have the good sense that I didn't have and listen to the sample first (not a mistake I'll likely make again).