Unlocking the Spell: A Tale of the Wide Awake Princess (Book 2) by E.D. Baker

Rating: Not for me

Reading Level: Middle School.

If you like Disney princess stories you’ll probably like this one. E.D. Baker weaves together Snow White, the Three Little Pigs, the Three Bears and Sleeping Beauty.

Things I like:

• Prince Liam has eyes for Annie even though she doesn’t have magic making her airbrush-beautiful. In particular, when everyone else is enamored with Annie’s sister, Liam doesn’t seem to notice anyone but Annie.
• The princess and Liam have a sweet friendship.
• The princess’s special “gift” is that magic doesn’t work on her or around her. So she has a normal girl’s appearance and she sees people without their magical airbrushed features. This exposes others’ superficiality because they don’t want to be around her in case their true colors are exposed.
• Prince Montrose realizes that his friends are a bad influence and resolves to get new ones.

Possible Concerns:

• Kissing. There is a bit of romance, and actually it is a bit too much PDA. There is talk of long kissing sessions.
• The Occult. It is a bit heavy on witches and curses.
• Drama. The princess wrestles with feelings for Liam and talks about wanting to kiss him, but the drama of him-acting-weird-and-why questions just isn’t done as well as in the first book.

Parents: if your daughter struggles with boy craziness this might awaken her heart too much. As for me, the first wide awake tale (Book 1) was sweet and clever, but this one has less to be excited about.

See also my review of the other books in this series: : The Wide Awake Princess (Book1), The Bravest Princess (Book 3), and The Princess in Disguise (Book 4).