Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner

TL;DR Helen of Sparta as a kid

TBR #378, added May 1, 2013

finished 2/11/17

I don't read historical fiction that often, so I wasn't sure if I was actually gonna finish Nobody's Princess. It turned out to be a good decision after all. 

I'll be honest, the only stuff I know about Greek history / culture is from Percy Jackson and like maybe a week's worth of lessons in 6th grade history class, so I have no idea if any of this was accurate or anything. It was interesting enough to read despite being so far out of my usual genre / topic comfort zones, so I stuck with it. It was cool to read about such an old setting and culture and see how Friesner filled in a period of time of Helen's life that nobody really knows about. 

The characters were all interesting and I'm really glad Friesner took the stance that Helen would have support from her family and others, instead of following historical fiction trends that women aren't allowed to do much of anything. Helen had a lot of agency and it definitely made the read better for me. 

I'm kind of curious about how the Greek gods come into play in the series. Obviously they're a big part of the culture, but in Nobody's Princess it was ambiguous whether they were supposed to be real or if they're just part of the setting. (I mean, if it's supposed to be strictly historical fiction, I'm gonna guess the gods are just a cultural aspect rather than a driving force of anything.)

I don't know if my library will have the second book, but I'm definitely willing to continue reading, as well as try out the other books Kindle recommended to me when I finished reading. I was actually kind of excited when I saw that there were more books like this with similar historical girls / women. 

TL;DR it's a cool historical fiction read and I enjoyed it.