{"id":62,"date":"2008-01-08T22:25:06","date_gmt":"2008-01-09T02:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/08\/review-of-book-of-a-thousand-days-by-shannon-hale\/"},"modified":"2008-01-08T22:25:06","modified_gmt":"2008-01-09T02:25:06","slug":"review-of-book-of-a-thousand-days-by-shannon-hale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=62","title":{"rendered":"Review of Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\u00a0\"book_of_a_thousand_days1.jpg\"<\/div>\n
Book of a Thousand Days<\/div>\n
by Shannon Hale<\/div>\n

Reviewed January 8, 2008.
\nBloomsbury, New York, 2007. 306 pages.
\nStarred Review.
\nSonderbooks Stand-out 2008: #1, Teen Fiction<\/p><\/div>\n

I picked up many Advanced Reading Copies of books at the ALA Conference last June, but the one I was by far the most excited about was Shannon Hale’s new book, Book of a Thousand Days.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mucker maid Dashti lost everything when her mother died, so she went to the city to learn to be a lady’s maid. When she comes to the palace, the princess needs a maid–because her father is sealing her into a tower for a thousand days because she has refused to marry the powerful ruler of the neighboring land.<\/p>\n

Dashti is willing to be shut up in the tower with the princess and food for a thousand days. But when rival suitors show up outside the tower, events don’t turn out as expected. Can Dashti help her lady survive?<\/p>\n

In many ways, Book of a Thousand Days<\/em> reminds me of The Goose Girl,<\/a> the book that made me fall in love with Shannon’s writing. Both books are lovely retellings of Grimm fairy tales. Both are phenomenal–wonderfully romantic, with a touch of politics and intrigue. In both, the fantasy is done with a light touch.<\/p>\n

Both books also involve a servant passing herself off as her Princess mistress. However, the two situations are complete opposites. In The Goose Girl,<\/em> the lady-in-waiting usurps her mistress’s place. In Book of a Thousand Days,<\/em> the humble servant only carries out the deception because of the orders of the fear-filled princess.<\/p>\n

In both books, we see character growth that rings true, and beautifully blossoming love, along with the forming of deep friendships during adversity.<\/p>\n

I’m afraid I’m starting to get skeptical about the romantic heroes in Shannon’s books. They are too wonderful! I’m starting to think they are a woman’s idea of the perfect man (They certainly fit my idea of the perfect man!), and a real living breathing man could never come close.<\/p>\n

But so what?! The magic in the book is done with a light touch, so it doesn’t hurt a bit to add another element of fantasy!<\/p>\n

This story is simple, and so beautifully told. Why does it strike me as one of the best books I’ve ever read? I don’t think I can put my finger on the external ingredients that make it so. All I know is that it touches my heart.<\/p>\n

This review is posted on the main site at www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/book_of_a_thousand_days.html<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale Reviewed January 8, 2008. Bloomsbury, New York, 2007. 306 pages. Starred Review. Sonderbooks Stand-out 2008: #1, Teen Fiction I picked up many Advanced Reading Copies of books at the ALA Conference last June, but the one I was by far the most excited about was Shannon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24,31,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-romance","category-stand-outs","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}