(Spoilers to follow.)
I am just outside the demographic for Wicked Marigold, by Caroline Carlson. This is an elementary or middle school-aged novel, and sometimes that is just fine but for this book I felt my age.
It tells the story of Princess Marigold. Before she was born, her older sister was kidnapped by an evil wizard, but she unexpectedly returns one day and immediately sucks up her parents’ and the kingdom’s attention. Marigold finds it all very annoying, throws a tantrum that creates a giant mess and inadvertently gives her the idea she is wicked, and runs away to stay with the evil wizard to prove it. Hijinks ensure.
One of the book blurbs said it was reminiscent of Howl’s Moving Castle, which is a book I adore. In retrospect, this comparison my have set my standards too high and let me to draw unflattering comparisons. There are definitely similarities, but Wicked Marigold loses every time. The evil Wizard Torville? He likes to sulk and makes messes and is very particular about certain things, but he’s no match for Howl, who steals every scene he’s in. The demon Pettifog, who has a magical contract to help the wizard with his magic? I prefer Calcifer. Marigold has nothing on Sophie Hatter (not to mention she is at least seventy years younger).
Other parts of the book seem a bit precious or twee, in ways that Howl’s Moving Castle and The Ordinary Princess do not. Maybe it is trying too hard. Six guards resign on the spot when three year old Princess Marigold throws a gigantic tantrum. The kingdom has a famously irritable dragon. Marigold learns how to greet a stranger seventeen polite ways. Why do these things bother me? I don’t know, they just do. I felt a similar dislike for stylistic choices in The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, but eventually got past it and cried when September had to kill the fish. Nothing in Wicked Marigold tempted my tear ducts to flow.
All the negative comments aside, I enjoyed the book. It didn’t go along with my expectations, but that isn’t always a bad thing. I kept waiting for Marigold’s angelic sister to reveal that she had a bad side… but she didn’t. She’s a completely good, beautiful, nice person and that’s it. Kind of refreshing. The evil “bad” guy is not as evil as he first appeared… but on the spectrum of “good” vs “bad,” he still chooses to identify with the “bad” side and I’m not convinced he doesn’t belong there. It was rather a relief that the book wasn’t populated with any “diverse” LGBTQ+ characters who use they/them pronouns. The book was stuffed with worldbuilding, and if it had more time to explore things (like Gentleman Northwinds and his relationship with Torville, for instance) I think I would have enjoyed it more. That’s the tradeoff with junior fiction, I guess.
SDG