A mashup between the Secret Garden and A Little Princess?!?! Oh my, yes please!!!! I knew this was going to be cute, but it was so very good!!!! The characters were brought to life in a whole new way to love!!!

Sarah and Mary are just as amazing as I remember them, but throw in some more spunk and attitude, along with a healthy dose of feminism and inclusion. Just wonderful characters, I love them both. It’s a super awesome touch to adjust Sarah as a Filipino girl rather than keeping her original ethnicity. As a half Asian woman, I really enjoyed that aspect. I’m excited about more inclusion in Ya novels these days!!

Then Cedric comes along and I adore him too!!! He adds an element of humor and a touch of love too. Oh the love in this book!!! Not too much, but just enough. My heart is still aching over the love in this book!!! I won’t go too into to depth, but just as in real life, not every romance works out. And it makes my heart just squeeze!!

The plot is absolutely phenomenal. I wasn’t sure how they were going to get all the important parts into one book, but they sure did!! Mary and Sarah do effectively become orphans, even if it’s not for an extensive amount of time. And there is a magical garden. More magical than I ever thought possible. I’d have to say the garden was my favorite part. My only small complaint is that it took a while to get to the garden.

I highly recommend this book to those who love the originals. This has so much to offer and includes huge amounts of nostalgia too. I can’t say enough good things about this one!!29 s Mallory1,501 209

A Little Princess and The Secret Garden were two of my favorite stories so I was very excited for this mashup. I also love retold fairy tales which this feels at least adjacent to. Somehow it fell a bit short for me. It lacked some of the magic of the original stories and dragged a bit. I didn’t love the epilogue or how things ended up for Sara in particular. I did love the characters and their friendships, everyone should get to see their favorite characters play together. I was ok with having Sara be Filipino and add some representation. I think for those who hadn’t read the originals this book may carry a bit more magic. 25 s Grace A.440 39

A brown-skinned princess tale? You don’t see that often, and what a refreshing tale it was. I insert myself into the characters of the books I read, especially those I enjoy. In this one, I was princess Sara Crewe, felt the joy of her elegance, brilliance and victories, and bore the pain of the prejudice, discrimination, unfairness towards her.
It was a delightful read. 4 stars.24 s Manybooks3,368 104

Yes indeed, and in my humble opinion, joint authors Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz's June 2022 young adult mash-up of Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Little Princess and A Secret Garden is decent enough and is also not so far removed from Hodgson Burnett's original texts so as to become unrecognisable and thus too problematic and too annoying for me to be able to tolerate and to accept (and in particular so with regard to Sara Crewe's character, who in A Secret Princess is certainly still and also appreciatively, delightfully depicted by Stohl and de la Cruz as having a very similar character and behaviour as is shown by Hodgson Burnett, as appears in A Little Princess). And indeed, Sara Crewe being presented as having an Irish, German and Filipina background in A Secret Princess does not really if at all change this feeling of textual familiarity for me either, although personally speaking, I must point out that just having Sara be speaking a few words of German to her father at the beginning of A Secret Princess (when Captain Crewe is dropping his daughter off at Miss Minchin's boarding school and Sara understandably feels intimidated, scared, and homesick but does not of course want the headmistress to know and to realise this), it just does not really make her all that specifically and unilaterally German for me, and that even with Sara's physical features and attributes showing her Filipina background from her mother's side, with regard to behaviour and attitudes, Sara Crewe in A Secret Princess still reads as being rather staunchly British Empire. And there is nothing at all wrong with that either, but I definitely do tend to think that Sara's ethnically and culturally diverse background is not really all that much explored and delved into, is not sufficiently expanded on by Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz in A Secret Princess (and that the authors also kind of seem to be using Sara Crewe's background as a bit of a proverbial window dressing so to speak, to show diverse representation, and that since A Secret Princess makes Sara Crewe bi if not actually multi-ethnic, I kind of expect and want a bit more than this simply being shown and engendering some instances of racism and problematic, ridiculous misunderstandings).

But just to say that while I certainly have found A Secret Princess a pleasant enough reading experience for me (and a nicely diverting and engaging two hours of my reading time), I have to admit that I also have more than a few textual issues with what Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz have penned. For one, first and foremost and quite importantly, while much of the information textually presented in A Secret Princess feels historically accurate and thus authentic enough for an 1860s England setting, sorry, but Stohl and de la Cruz having Mary Lennox, Sara Crewe and Cedric Erroll meet and become best friends at boarding school actually does not (in my opinion at least) make a lot of sense with regard to British school history, since during the 1860s's (and basically well until the mid 20th century) British boarding schools would generally not have been co-educational (so that therefore, having Miss Minchin's school be open to both boys and girls in 1863 is at best rather fantastically far-fetched and certainly makes the entire premise of A Secret Princess majorly iffy and with me as a reader really having to suspend my historical knowledge, and which I really do NOT at all having to do and actually quite resent). For two, sorry, but the Mary Lennox character of A Secret Princess is for me much too positive, much too enthusiastically accepting/tolerant and also too into fighting against social injustice and racial intolerance right from the onset, right from the beginning of the novel. Because for me, much of the charm of The Secret Garden has always been how arrogant, how used to being holier and higher than thou, how intolerant, curmudgeonly and often downright sour tempered Mary Lennox slowly (and with the magic of the forgotten and locked-up garden at Misselthwaite) changes and becomes friendly, accepting, eager to help and sweet-natured. And yes, that this is sadly kind skipped over and pretty much ignored by Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz in A Secret Princess, it kind of majorly grates on me and especially so since The Secret Garden is such a personal favourite, not to mention that I also consider how the Cedric Eroll of A Secret Princess (from Little Lord Fauntleroy) is basically combined with The Secret Garden's Colin Craven (with basically only the name Cedric Eroll and the social status and privilege it brings being retained from Little Lord Fauntleroy) not only annoying but also rather creating a character who is neither here nor there for me, who is basically often just taking narrative space and really not all that interesting. And for three, aside from Mary, Sara and Cedric supposedly being older teenagers in A Secret Princess but rather being shown as acting considerably younger and often with quite a bit of immaturity and impulsivity, I also consider how Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz have depicted many of the secondary charters of A Secret Princess as too far removed from Frances Hodgson Burnett's portrayals (with in particular Martha Sowerby and Dickon Sowerby being textually quite problematic for me in A Secret Princess, with Martha being shown as deliberately nasty and insensitive towards Sara Crewe due to her ethnicity and Dickon Sowerby immediately falling in love with Sara and later being simply disposed off and executed, and that indeed the romance inclusions for A Secret Princess just do not really work for me and feel rather tacked on and artificial, almost as though the authors absolutely think that a young adult novel combining Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Little Princess and The Secret Garden should somehow also and automatically require romance elements in order to textually succeed).

But with all my above mentioned criticisms, I should perhaps even consider only two stars for A Secret Princess (as there certainly is quite a bit that I have not textually enjoyed all that much or at least do find potentially a reading issue). But considering that A Secret Princess has still been decently pleasant enough for me, and because I think that how Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz have approached and combined Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Little Princess and A Secret Garden works tolerably well and equally does not simply metaphorically cast away Frances Hodgson Burnett (and indeed, with A Secret Princess being in my humble opinion oh so so much better than what the authors created with their Jo & Laurie, where I really and simply cannot stand how Louisa May Alcott's Little Women has been changed and for me pretty much totally and utterly spoiled), my rating, my general assessment of A Secret Princess will be a rather low and tentative three stars, although truth be told, any recommendations of A Secret Princess will be with some necessary caveats, with reservations and in particular for those of consider Frances Hodgson Burnett's novels and in particular The Secret Garden as amongst their personal reading favourites).artificial-romance book- childrens-literature ...more16 s Amy2,754 541

Despite my unenthusiastic status updates throughout this book, I genuinely expected my review to conclude with something : "A decent read that suffers from comparison to the original stories it retells."

Except forget comparison. 400 pages later and I still don't know what the point of this book was.

Allegedly this tale follows two familiar faces: Mary Lennox and Sara Crewe from Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden and A Little Princess. Cedric Errol from Little Lord Fauntleroy is also around, but even more than the other two, carries little resemblance to his literary counterpart.

"BUT THE PLOT?" you ask. "WHAT IS THE PLOT?"

That's the thing. I don't know.

Set loosely around 1865, Mary, Sara, and Cedric attend a sketchy boarding school where they are ostracized despite all coming from wealthy, upper class families. Cedric is in a wheelchair (because he is a fill-in for Collin Craven à la The Secret Garden), Sara Crew is now half-Filipino, and Mary is...obnoxious?

(The first non-Quaker mixed-sex public boarding school in England was Bedales School, founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley and becoming mixed in 1898, but WHATEVER. It isn't this book cares about historical accuracy anyway.)

All of them start out with parents and lose them randomly as the plot goes on, until they all just decide to embrace orphanhood and flee to Paris while cross-dressing and begin a career on the theater. The plot has about as much transition as that sentence.

However, don't think too hard about it, because these teens may speak six languages and champion the values of good twenty first century moralists, but none of them know how trains work so they get dumped off for a random Secret Garden montage about two paragraphs later.

If any theme is overarching in this story, it would be the blatant and obnoxious racism coming from every, single character. I understand and can even appreciate the author's desire to insert her Filipino background into one of her favorite children's books. What I can't understand is why it was done so poorly. There is a ham-handedness to these villains that simply feels awkward and lazy. Why is Miss Minchin a bitter old woman? Doesn't matter. Racism. Why is Mrs. Medlock so horrendously rude to her employer's guests? Doesn't matter. Racism. Why are there random peacocks alive in the garden? Doesn't matter. Ra...actually, no one knows.

There are numerous characters, all loosely connected as name drops from the original books, but few who actually last longer than a chapter or two, and even fewer with relevance to the plot.

There is no overarching or consistent villain, except maybe lawyers. There sure are a lot of lawyers in this book and they are all TERRIBLE.

But it isn't just the so-called villains. Mary and Sara are disappointing. They experience no character change. Their personalities are the same at the beginning as they are at the end. Things have happened to them, but I never sensed any growth in them personally. They start out perfect (perfectly formed morals, perfect courage, perfect 'princesses') and while life happens, they just fight back until it conforms to their desire. There is one point where Mary ends up in a work house with evil, racist nuns (after being dropped off by a corrupt constabulary) with several other girls. She KNOWS the girls have nowhere else to go. She knows that the visiting benefactress can make or break whether these girls will eat. So what does she do? She runs her mouth and leaves. You're left to assume that the benefactress fixes things, but there is just as much (or even more) lihood that Mary did the 'right' thing and by doing so left everything worse off for the remaining inmates. This is a repeated pattern that I assume is supposed to be 'good' since she never experiences any consequences for dropping truth bombs and moving on.

Does this book fail in comparison to the original novels? Undoubtably. But unfortunately, it also fails as a standalone novel. These are unlikable characters who are SUPPOSED to be likable and who skip around with little rhyme or reason except that the original stories require it. The romance (if you can call it that) is unsatisfying and out of nowhere. The tragic tone at the end is pointless.

The best I can say is that it will quickly fade from memory.curiosity-killed-the-cat my-bookstore-discoveries needs-an-editor ...more16 s4 comments Laura225 2

Having enjoyed "Jo & Laurie," I was excited to pick this one up as well, and it has a beautiful cover and spine to match their first book. However, I can only describe this book as a depressing train wreck. It was a disastrous hodgepodge of three children's stories, the first two of which I thoroughly enjoyed in their original form: "A Secret Garden," "A Little Princess" and "Little Lord Fauntleroy." "Jo & Laurie" made total sense for those readers who wished that Jo would end up with Laurie. But what was the point of this book, other than, the author says in her acknowledgements, to change one of the main characters to a Filipino and have some representation? That's understandable, but smashing the three tales together into one book did not make for a coherent story. This book was largely boring, and almost every page was bleak, bleaker than any of the original books. [Spoiler] Don't get me started on the epilogue of what happens to Dickon - he's randomly executed, casually tossed aside. If these characters are beloved to the authors, why the heck would they want to execute one of them? Terrible, terrible book. Also, anyone who doesn't enjoy the 'woke' tropes of evil policemen, evil Catholics, and 99% of the world being racist will not enjoy this book. I feel re-reading "The Secret Garden" to cleanse myself of this disaster.disappointment historical-fiction trainwreck16 s1 comment Haley Kilgour969 1 follower

This book had so much potential but just fell completely flat in my opinion. Yes the right elements of A Secret Garden and The Little Princess were there, but the storyline just didn’t work. And the characters were a mess.

As far as the storyline goes, it didn’t feel there really was a plot, or a major goal or climax. The characters just kind of bumbled along until they got a happy ending.

My first major issue with the characters was they didn’t feel 16/17 year old people. They acted they were 12. Mary was supposed to be this witty wild character. And she was just wild and there were no consequences ever. Sara is supposed to be brilliant yet almost never uses her brain. And why on earth would she just let people walk all over her?

The romances were a little strange. Cedric and Mary worked. They had the history for them to work. Dickon proposes to Sara after a day of knowing her claiming ti love her quite a bit and it was just weird.

Minchin was also an issue. Supposedly Sara’s family dies in a volcanic explosion and her room and board hasn’t been taken care of. Classes are paid, but nothing else is. Also, how does she get away with shaving Sara’s head for no reason?

I also had issues with the prologue. Somehow there’s a genie. Which I’m still not sure if it was real or a figment of Mary’s imagination. Then it jumps to Sara’s head getting shaved and Mary doing the same to herself to stop Minchin. Then later on in the story is when the head shaving happens in real time. It was just a weird scene that could’ve been better placed.

I did that the ending was both happy but not completely filling.This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full review13 s court ?? librarycutie389 1,023

DNF. this book felt forced, i wasn’t a fan of the writing style either. it was trying to push a certain agenda and it didn’t work.13 s Melanie Brinkman620 73 Want to read

Okay, what limb do I need to sell to get to read this right now?!

historical-fiction retellings romance ...more8 s Samantha100 6

When I saw that this was a mash-up of The Secret Garden AND A Little Princess, I was immediately SOLD on this.

I am such a fan of both books/movies that I was so excited to see how the authors were going to merge these two separate stories into one, and I think they did it very nicely.

Something that threw me was that they were supposed to be around 15/16 years old but, I kept seeing all the characters in my mind at the age they were in the movies (11-13) but that's just me not being able to let go of the past.

But overall it was a cute story about friendship and I'm happy I picked it up.7 s Amanda M (On The Middle Shelf)316 630

This was such a fun take on some of Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic stories. I enjoyed the banter between Sara, Mary, and Collin and appreciated that the author brought her own heritage into Sara's character. I also thought the updates Stohl and de la Cruz made to some of the more antiquated aspects of the books while still keeping the overall story set during the same time of the originals was a fantastic story choice.2022-new-releases audiobook netgalley ...more7 s Amy17 2

I’m marked my review with spoilers because I feel I need to go in depth to the book to explain my issues with it. Overall, it was a very light, fluffy read but one I am unly to ever return to.

- First, the plot summary listed on several websites was different from the summary on the jacket cover. Some of those summaries made it seem Sara and Cedric were love interests and Mary with Dickon, so I was very surprised when that was in fact not the case.
- I was very disappointed with the liberties that were taken with The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Honestly, it seems they could have scrapped the Little Lord Fauntleroy references since Cedric was clearly just a rewrite of Collin Craven. Cedric is a wonderful character in his own right and deserved more than just being Collin. The fact that they removed Mary from her own story elements was really disappointing to me, especially when they added in the random “uncle in America” and how Martha Sowerby was made to be racist and snippy towards Sara.
- It was strange to me how they brought up the American Civil War twice and it never really went anywhere? There was really good commentary and depictions about the English poorhouses and workhouses of that time, I just feel the book would have been stronger if it didn’t have that random hook that really didn’t amount to much overall.
- I will say I d the changes given to Sara Crewe by making her Filipino. I felt it refreshed the character while still retaining the integrity of who she was. It also added a really interesting depiction of the racism seen in the British Empire at that time, so this was one of the strong parts of the book for me. I also appreciated that her story in the course of the book most closely matched the original source material.
- The romance was sweet but ultimately lacking. The juxtaposition of Sara and Dickson’s short lived, Star crossed romance with Cedric and Mary’s romance was not successful in my opinion. The fact that the last few chapters parallel their relationships only for the epilogue to reveal Dickon was courtmartialed and executed and Sara never married, but even though it seemed Mary and Cedric were parted forever, they reunited and were now married? I feel that that should have been a scene rather than a character’s conversation. Also, the fact that Cedric doesn’t actually appear in the epilogue despite being a main character (who doesn’t receive any POV chapters) was another disappointment.

Ultimately, I feel this had a lot of potential but failed to live up to it. If you are a strong fan of Frances Hodgson Burnet’s works, you may be offended by the liberties taken with the original stories. Definitely a good short read if you’re just looking for something to pass the time.This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full review6 s Rachel1,437 154 Want to read

OMG PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE WITH A CHERRY IN TOP, APPROVE ME FOR THIS ARC! PLEASE
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