Crisanta Knight: Protagonist Bound by Geanna Culbertson

Crisanta Knight: Protagonist Bound
by Geanna Culbertson
Pages: 434
Date: May 10 2016
Publisher: Boutique of Quality Books
Series: Unknown name for series (1st in series of a projected 8)

Review
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
Read: March 25 to 26 2016

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Boutique of Quality Books in exchange for an honest review.

This is both the first book I've read by this author and the first book in this series. I found the book somewhat randomly when I was searhing through NetGalley to see if there was anything interesting to read. This one caught my eye, and I'm glad it did.

There's some kind of addictive/hypnotic quality to the writing that caused me to want to keep reading, to continue following along as the story unfolded. This is a good thing, since the lead character had a tendency to do something that I normally find annoying - she was in her head a lot. Not little snippets here and there, but massive amounts of words trapped inside the lead character's head. but, as I noted something was addictive about the whole process so I just shrugged off that specific annoyance.

Characters
Crisanta Knight: is the lead character in this book, and sole point of view. She's a 16 year old girl, and has spent a good bit of her life going to a specific school. One for young pincesses and other protagonists. I'll mention more what that means in the plot section. For now I'll just leave it at (1) 16 year old girl; (2) is a princess - the daughter of Cinderalla and Prince Charming (though the father's given a different name, I didn't really catch why though); (3) Crisanta has spent a good part of her life attendin the school I already referenced; (4) she, and the vast majority of the others in this book live in a place called 'Book', which, in it's way, is a fantasy land; (5) Crisanta is not happy with the concept of being a 'princess, a damsel in distress, who must be rescued by her prince' and fights that fate as much as she can, despite her position in the world.

SJ: is both a good friend to Crisanta and her roommate. She is also a princess. The daughter of Snow White (SJ's actually Snow Junior, hence SJ). Of the three girls who live in the same dorm room at the school, she's the most 'princess-y' of the lot. Crisanta's more half and half - half princess-y; half rebelleous. SJ, as part of her being the perfect princess, does the things expected of a princess - which includes following the rules, speaking correctly, singing perfectly, and having many animal friends who do her bidding.

Blue: the third roommate, is a 'common' protagonist and one of the very rare few allowed the very slight chance of being some form of minor heroic figure (though not a hero, apparently). Even though she's a 'common' protagonist, she's also a 'half-legacy', because her sister was a protagonist - her sister being little red riding hood (Red wore a red cape all the time, Blue wears blue all the time).

Jason: is a prince at the male version of the school Crisanta attends. He's friends with the three, though closest to Blue.

Daniel: is a 'common' protagonist, a roommate of Jason's, and something of an antagonist to Crisanta (though not really, they just get on each other's nerves).

Setting
This book takes place in a land of 26 kingdoms called Book. There are some adjacent realms, mostly unspecified, though one of them is a place called 'Earth.' There are also two other places mentioned in this book, though I'm not certain if they are adjacent realms or in Book.

The people in 'Book' grow up in a society wherein they know that some of the people will end up being 'protagonists' in books (though it is not specificed as to whether or not they know what that means). Royals and select commoners become protagonists. The rest are left to being something like side characters.

Plot
Crisanta is quite annoyed with the idea of being a 'damsel in distress' and fights constantly to try to change her fate, despite knowing that there is no way to change her fate. At least, that's what everyone tells her. So, instead of saying do not, she says don't (as in she uses contractions, 'princess do not use contractions). She'd prefer to take classes in sword-fighting rather than classes in fainting, but that isn't her fate. For she's a princess.

The majority of the book takes place at this 'Lady Agnue's School for Princesses & Other Female Protagonists' place. There are a few 'balls', 'field trips' and other such events during the school year, and a summer vacation of some unknown number of months.

So the book follows Crisanta as she attempts to navigate this school; while being constantly 'attacked' in her dreams by rather vivid nightmares (and some blurry ones as well). The nightmares are where I pull in the part wherein I noted that most of the action takes place in Book. Well, some takes place in Crisanta's dreams of a specific girl who happens to live on earth.

The school year proceeds, events unfold, places are visited on field trips, sporting events occur, and finally a quest is attempted involving a few young women and a few young men.

Overall
I rather enjoyed the book and wish to immediately continue the story. Alas I cannot. For the most part I liked the people I was supposed to like, and the only real negative I can think of, well two negatives: (1) there are a lot of pages in which Crisanta is 'thinking' a lot in her brain. Not exactly whimpering like thoughts, but bordering on them; (2) there are a lot of pages in this book, there is a bunch of stuff that occurred but it didn't really feel like the story actually got going until the endish parts. Then the book was done. The book ended on something of a cliff-hanger (in terms of the story not being wrapped up, not in terms of literally having a scene cut in half; I've had that happen to me before. Being in the middle of the scene, someone is thrusting their fist forward . . . .book ends, have to wait until next book to see what happens (in one specific case involving a story by David Weber, the book ended mid-invasion, and the invasion wasn't picked up again until like three books later). So yeah, this ended without the story being wrapped up, but not mid-scene.

It's a good neat interesting book. I recommend it for one and all. Or something like that.

March 27 2016