Review: I am Princess X by Cherie Priest

Publish date: 2015
Source: School media center
Format: Paperback
Length: 256 pages
"Once upon a time, two best friends created a princess together. Libby drew the pictures, May wrote the tales, and their heroine, Princess X, slayed all the dragons and scaled all the mountains their imaginations could conjure. 

Once upon a few years later, Libby was in the car with her mom, driving across the Ballard Bridge on a rainy night. When the car went over the side, Libby passed away, and Princess X died with her.

Once upon a now: May is sixteen and lonely, wandering the streets of Seattle, when she sees a sticker slapped in a corner window.

Princess X?

When May looks around, she sees the Princess everywhere: Stickers. Patches. Graffiti. There's an entire underground culture, focused around a webcomic at IAmPrincessX.com. The more May explores the webcomic, the more she sees disturbing similarities between Libby's story and Princess X online. And that means that only one person could have started this phenomenon---her best friend, Libby, who lives." (Goodreads)

Do you ever read something and then wonder why you waited so long to read it? That is exactly how I felt when I was reading I am Princess X! It's been on my TBR since I'd heard of it and the media center at the school where I work even had it, but I STILL waited so long to read it and now I want to kick myself. I picked it up on a whim recently while at school and could barely put it down!

The bulk of this story is May trying to find out what is going on with all the Princess X stuff she is seeing all over Seattle since only she and Libby really knew about it and Libby's been dead for years. I felt like I was right there with her, trying to figure out who was putting all this Princess X stuff everywhere. Was Libby still alive? Did someone find all their stuff and start posting it? What was going on???  I felt like I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!

Another aspect of the book I liked was the addition of some of the Princess X comics throughout the book, so you get both normal narrative parts and comics while reading. Sometimes extra stuff like that annoys me in books, but it worked perfectly here. I think that will really help with its appeal when I book talk it to my classes in the fall.

The only reason this wasn't a five star read for me was because of the ending. I wanted more explanation and basically just more in general of everything, but I still felt like it was a really good book. I only wish I'd read it earlier so I could have gotten it signed when I was at an event with Cherie Priest in January. Note to self: don't wait so long to read books when they sound amazing!