Entwined- by Heather Dixon

I'm not sure how this book got into my library queue, but I was interested in the book merely for the cover- it looks so magical! Entwined by Heather Dixon is a coming of age story of sorts about 12 princesses who live in an enchanted castle. Azalea, the main character and oldest princess, must help her sisters through the grieving process once their mother passes away.

I rate this book 2 1/2 stars out of 5 mainly due to a slow storyline and parts of the story just didn't make sense. For example, I  often wondered if I had skipped a page in the book because I seemed to be missing some of the story. While I understand the author's reasoning behind adding some particular quirk to a character — in this case Azalea curling her toes in her boots — she seemed to do the motion too often (in both good and bad situations) and the author could have slightly altered the phrasing a bit so that the motion wasn't so redundant. Another part of the story that I just didn't understand was that the royal family seemed to live well beneath their means — Why is is that the Prime Minister lived better than the king himself?  For those reasons I rated the book a 2 1/2 stars out of 5. I'm willing to read more by Heather Dixon, and hope to see further stories about Azalea and her sisters as they explore the use of magic in their castle.