Holly Farb and the Princess of the Galaxy by Gareth Wronski (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Holly Farb and the Princess of the Galaxy by Gareth Wronski
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4814-7177-0 $16.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4814-7179-4 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4–6
Holly is just trying to endure her lowly place in her school pecking order when she’s [End Page 474] suddenly thrown into an adventure involving aliens, a case of a mistaken identity (it is believed she is the missing Princess of the Galaxy), interstellar travel, and space pirates. It’s almost (but not quite) enough to distract brilliant Holly from her ultimate goal of getting into the right school, though her ideas about what makes the “right” school evolve quite a bit by the end of the novel and Holly may never look at Earth or her predictable, orderly life the same way again. Holly’s a tough kid to like at first, but she really just needs a push out of her rigid shell, and new experiences do exactly what they are meant to do—they change her forever, and in this case, for the better. One of the true stars of this novel is the storytelling robot who narrates this adventure and adds sardonic asides about human behavior; a sequel (also told by the snarky Automatic Silicone Transistor Robot OS-78, natch) would be welcome indeed.
