Review: The Restless Girls

The Restless Girls by Jessie Burton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a beautiful updating of a classic story. It still has the feel of a fairytale, helped immeasurably by Angela Barret's fabulous artwork, but there are touches of newness; a telephone, the daughter who love astronomy and the daughter who uses a typewriter. These things give it a feeling of being set anywhere, anywhen.

I loved the ending, too. A very clever solution to the problem. What a lovely message to give children - princesses can save themselves. Five stars.


Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.


Frida walked, head held high, towards the curtain covering one of the windows.
When they realised what she was about to do, the advisors cried in unison for her to stop.
But Frida did not stop..
With one sharp heave, she pulled the curtain back, and a golden vengeance poured into the room.
'Insolence!' screamed the king, and in that moment it was hard to tell whether he was blinded by the light of the sun, or of his daughter.
Frida was moving like a spirit, curtain to curtain, pulling down the black drapes, advisors and maids cringing with their eyes closed, the dust swirling like gold notes around the throne as velvet and taffeta tumbled to the floor. Ariosta rushed to help her, and Bellina followed, then Chessa and Delilah and Mariella, then Polina and Emelia, then Flora and Vita, and finally Lorna and Agnes, twelve princessly pairs of hands making portal after portal of sunshine to flood the room.
No one could stop them,
no one dared go near them,
and thus their father's throne was nothing,
a chair, bleached white by the light of grief.

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