Daisy's Review of The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze

Title/Author: The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze
Publisher/Date published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, May 1st 2012
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley

Goodreads summary: "Happily ever after is a thing of the past.
A series of natural disasters has decimated the earth. Cut off from the rest of the world, England is a dark place. The sun rarely shines, food is scarce, and groups of criminals roam the woods, searching for prey. The people are growing restless.
When a ruthless revolutionary sets out to overthrow the crown, he makes the royal family his first target. Blood is shed in Buckingham Palace, and only sixteen-year-old Princess Eliza manages to escape.
Determined to kill the man who destroyed her family, Eliza joins the enemy forces in disguise. She has nothing left to live for but revenge, until she meets someone who helps her remember how to hope — and to love — once more. Now she must risk everything to ensure that she not become... The Last Princess."

You guys, I'm always happy to read a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel and I'm ALL about the princesses! And I have a huge obsession with anything to do with England and their royalty. So when I saw them combined in The Last Princess, I just knew I had to read it.
But I'm sad to say it has left me... disappointed. And I'm going to do a 'Jana' and let you know through a list what exactly happened for me to feel that way.

1. I found myself wondering if pages were missing: It was a pretty short book and while that's not always a problem, to me with The Last Princess it felt like there was just a whole lot of things that were missing. Like they'd been there but had been cut away to make the book shorter. I found myself actually wondering if the e-ARC I was reading was faulty and missing huge chunks of the story, but I don't think that was the case.

2. I felt lost: The story felt all over the place and everything seemed to be happening at once without a moment to reflect or get to know the characters or to just figure out how much time had actually passed. I felt lost while reading this book and that's not a good way to feel for me personally.

3. Failure for me to get a sense of the main characters' identities: I've finished the book and I'm still not sure what to say to characterize Eliza. To me it's a problem when I can't do that for the main character, cause it all revolves around her right? I mean, I should be able to tell you what makes her Eliza and I can't. I should be able to tell you more about the love interest besides him being blond.

4. The romance: I would like to tell you that the romance was sweet, but instead I have to say it confused me. I mean, seriously, these two were together for a whole whopping day and she's in love? I mean, really? REALLY?

5. Cruelty without a good explanation There's a lot of cruelty going on and sometimes it was horrifying! Also, for those who are sensitive to animal cruelty/dying, like I am, be warned (a dog dying broke my heart). The things that were done by the ruthless revolutionary's army were insane and astonishing in their mindnumbing viciousness and I would have liked to see a bit more explanation as to how it all started and why people were behaving like that! And about the Seventeen Days!
Also: **SPOILER, LIGHT UP TO READ**
With all the killing going on, I thought some of the miraculous survivals were a bit convenient. I mean, I could have handled either Polly or Mary surviving that last fight, but both seemed a bit too much seeing as they both seemed pretty mortally wounded. They had to look EVERYWHERE to find antibiotics, how did they manage to fix these girls up? And Caligula, how actually does a horse survive a lance in the side?

I did like the premise of the book, which is what made me read it in the first place, but I would have just liked a bit MORE of everything. A little more backstory, a little more time for me to get to know Eliza and actually care about what happened to her. A little more description of what was going on instead of just saying two weeks had passed and it had been horrible. Because that doesn't work for me.

I also really appreciated the relationship between the siblings and little Jamie stole my heart with his sweet boyness. The ending leaves me thinking that this will be a series and I'm curious if we will find out all the gaping holes of knowledge that The Last Princess has left me staring at. So while this book didn't really work for me, I might just pick up the next one (if there is one, does anyone know??) to see if it's better and if it will live up to the potential of this premise.

My rating: 2 stars