The Princess Trials

A Young Adult Dystopian Romance

By: Cordelia K Castel

Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski

Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Thirty young women. A handsome prince. A battle to the death.

Water is scarce. Deserts have taken over the land. Nuclear war has devastated humanity. Humans live in walled super cities to keep out the irradiated. The land that was formerly known as America is divided into kingdoms ruled by royal elites.

Born into the lowest Echelon of the Kingdom of Phangloria, 16-year-old Zea Calico faces a life of hunger, thirst, and toil. The only way out of this drudgery is revolution, and Zea is desperate to help the cause.

When the palace calls for candidates to compete to marry Prince Kevon, Zea joins the Princess Trials to search the palace for weaknesses.

The trials should be a fairytale of sumptuous meals, ballgowns, and romance, but one misplaced word causes Zea to attract the Prince’s attention. When Zea uncovers the man beneath Prince Kevon’s public facade, she is at risk of falling in love and losing sight of her mission.

But the televised beauty pageant turns deadly, and Zea must fight for survival.

Perfect for fans of The Hunger Games and The Selection, this exciting tale of courage, intrigue, and betrayal will have you listening for hours.

©2020 Cordelia Castel (P)2020 Cordelia Castel

Didn't think I would enjoy at first

This was so much like the selection in the first 10 chapters. After that the story started to remind me much of the red queen. Especially in the class system and the different sectors. But I like that it focused less on romance and more on this Zia's experiences during the selection. Can't wait to see what happens in the next book.

Entertaining

This book kept my attention the whole time. Cute love story with adventure built in. I’m excited to continue the series.

I love a good rebel story!

I’ll be honest, I almost didn’t get through the first chapter. I wasn’t a fan of the narrator and the story didn’t have an epic attention-grabbing beginning. It’s a lot like the Selection series (which I don’t mind because I loved that series), but it has its own twist to it. Once I got past the first chapter, however, the story started to reel me in. And once I started to enjoy the story, I started to enjoy the narrator too. The book goes back and forth between predictable and unpredictable (I love variety!), though I wish the author had ended the book with a bang to get us excited for the next one. Either way, I can’t wait to keep reading!

Hell of a read

Got this book not realizing it was more on the feminine side as im not normally into books like these. However i thoroughly enjoyed this book and already purchased the remaining books.
The narrator does a fantastic job and id recommend this book to anyone.

I’ve read better

For a revolutionary the main character has definitely lost the plot. Hunger Games is a much better dystopian novel.

A Guilty Pleasure Read

The book was a fun guilty pleasure read. I had a lot of fun reading it, but there are some odd, cheesy scenes that were meant to be dramatic or romantic but were just funny to me. I got a kick out of ranting to my husband about the funny bits and the intricate plot line. I wouldn't say this is a great book, but if you want a fun, interesting read, then this is it!

Amazing! Loved every second.

I got this audiobook because my daughter wanted me to read the novel at the same time as her but she got so excited she read it in a day and I was traveling and could only listen to the audiobook. I'm so happy to have a copy of the book and audiobook now. It's a fabulous story, even if it's almost annoyingly similar to The Selection before chapter 10. The story still has its own wild and amazing flavor that makes it a book you can't put down or stop listening to. My daughter is now almost done with the second book and she says it's even better than the first which is hard to imagine. I can't recommend highly enough!

Parent/Teacher guide: even though the plot has hunger games type scenarios, the descriptions are all very mild and there isn't any gore 2/5 for violence. There is minimal sexual content only in the form of mild implications and no actual events or specific terminology 1/5, there is also no profanity 0/5. I'd recommend grades 6 or higher just because it might be challenging for younger grades to understand the societal/government references.

Love!!!!

I picked up this book because it seemed very similar to the selection series. However, I like it better! Where the selection series is focused on romance and pretty dresses, the princess trials is more focused on corruption, political maneuvering and rebellion. The girls are very well written and I really appreciated the wide variety of powerful female characters - even if many of them were evil. The most interesting character to me was Berta. She was the perfect representation of how bullying and unfair societal expectations can truly damage a person. I loved the plot twists, intrigue and insightful was of the main character. Though she certainly has her flaws, Zea’s compassion and insights into her relationships are remarkable. I blew through the first book in two days and I’m already cranking through the next one. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Loved it!

I couldn’t stop listening! I love the characters and can’t wait to find out what happens.

Zea’s naïveté turned incompetence

Overall this story is great, I love the concept of it, always down to take down an oppressive system.

But Zea genuinely pisses me off lol.

At first she was just a naive teenager to me, which I could get past. You have to learn to grow and she was essentially sheltered. But when you KNOW you are being played, you KNOW things are getting dangerous and still deliberately make the wrong decision every time just to be surprised by the outcome? I can only take so much.

It literally got to the point where it felt like she was being stupid just for the sake of it. When clear cut decisions were presented to her, she found a hole in the wall and crawled through it to a more clear cut decision.,. Then she walked out of the entire building. I felt so frustrated at her and her constant choices to not just think.

Story is great, she’s just my bane currently 🤣