I Am Princess X

by Cherie Priest, Kali Ciesemier (Illustrator)

Overview

Best friends, big fans, a mysterious webcomic, and a long-lost girl collide in this riveting novel, perfect for fans of both Cory Doctorow and Sarah Dessen, & illustrated throughout with comics.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545642743
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/26/2015
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Lexile:	790L (what's this?)
File size:	37 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Kali Ciesemier's work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, Ebony, Mental Floss, and many other publications. She lives in New York. Please visit her website at www.ciesemier.com and follow her on Twitter at @kalidraws.
Cherie Priest is the author of I Am Princess X, her debut young adult novel which earned three starred reviews and was a YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. She is also the author of more than a dozen adult science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels, including Boneshaker, which won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. She lives in Seattle, Washington and can be found online at www.cheriepriest.com and @cmpriest.

Read an Excerpt

From I AM PRINCESS XThe sticker on the very last building before Olive Street shouldn't have caught her eye at all. It was vinyl, and cheap. The edge was starting to peel. The colors were a little faded. It was round with a black border. But within this border was the outline of a girl with shiny blue hair. She wore a pink puff-sleeved dress, a tall gold crown, and red Chucks. In her left hand, she held a purple sword shaped like a katana.May kept staring at the stupid sticker like maybe it'd pop to life and tell her that none of it was ever true. Not the bridge. Not the car. Not the water. Not Libby's closed casket and her empty house, with an empty room, and an empty closet where the boxes of Princess X memorabilia used to be.Maybe none of it was true. Or at least not the most important thing. Maybe Libby was alive.

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/30/2015
Back in fifth grade, best friends May and Libby created Princess X, a katana-wielding heroine who wears Converse sneakers with her ball gown. Ever since Libby and her mother died in a freak accident, May’s life has been as gray as her Seattle home—until the 16-year-old spots a Princess X sticker in a store window, leading her to a Princess X webcomic that suggests that Libby might still be alive. With the help of Trick, a hacker-for-hire, May follows the trail that Princess X’s near-mythic narrative leaves for her, which incorporates Seattle landmarks like the Fremont Troll and characters like the dangerous Needle Man and the mysterious, helpful Jackdaw. Illustrations from the Princess X comic—skillfully rendered by Ciesemier and printed in purple—add greatly to this techno-thriller’s tension. Fresh and contemporary, this hybrid novel/comic packs a lot of plot in a relatively short book, but its strongest suit may be Priest’s keen understanding of the chasmic gap between the way teens and adults engage in the landscape of the Internet. Ages 12–up. Author’s agent: Jennifer Jackson, Donald Maass Literary. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for I Am Princess X*"An engrossing cyberthriller packed with a puzzling mystery, crackerjack detective work, and an eerie, atmospheric sense of place." —Booklist, starred review*"Fresh and contemporary, this hybrid novel/comic packs a lot of plot... but its strongest suit may be Priest's keen understanding of the chasmic gap between the way teens and adults engage in the landscape of the Internet." —Publisher's Weekly, starred review*"A tantalizing, page-turner of a mystery." —School Library Journal, starred review"Readers will likely swallow this book in a single gulp... compelling and exciting." —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2015
Gr 7 Up—May and Libby created Princess X on the day they met in fifth grade. That was before Libby and her mother died in a car crash. Now May is 16 and looking at another long, lonely summer in Seattle when she spots a Princess X sticker on the corner of a store window. Suddenly she starts seeing Princess X everywhere, including in a webcomic at IAmPrincessX.com, where the princess story is eerily similar to Libby's. This means that the only person who could have created the comic is May's best friend—Libby—who must still be alive. In her YA debut, Priest offers a tantalizing, page-turner of a mystery that spans real locations in Seattle and dark pockets of the Internet. May is an assertive, capable heroine who finds help from likable and well-realized characters along the way in this fresh and authentic story. Even when the action moves online, Priest keeps the story exciting and approachable without ever resorting to technical jargon. Accompanying illustrations by Ciesemier bring the story found in the webcomic to life and integrate beautifully with May's search for Libby in this utterly satisfying read. VERDICT An excellent book with loads of cross-genre and cross-format appeal. Highly recommended.—Emma Carbone, Brooklyn Public Library

School Library Journal

Priest’s compelling audiobook stars high-schooler May, computer whiz Trick, and the city of Seattle, which figures prominently in their adventures. May’s best friend died in a car accident when they were younger. Only now, May’s discovering hints that Libby may not be gone after all. Narrator Mary Robinette Kowal has an interesting voice (listeners may find themselves trying to place her regionalisms), and it sounds just different enough to add even more auditory interest. The print book features graphic novel sections, which the audio production effectively evokes with music and sound effects, while Kowal uses a booming movie trailer voice to clearly distinguish them from the rest of the narrative. Listeners will be caught up in the suspenseful (if occasionally far-fetched) action. J.M.D. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2016 - AudioFile

Priest’s compelling audiobook stars high-schooler May, computer whiz Trick, and the city of Seattle, which figures prominently in their adventures. May’s best friend died in a car accident when they were younger. Only now, May’s discovering hints that Libby may not be gone after all. Narrator Mary Robinette Kowal has an interesting voice (listeners may find themselves trying to place her regionalisms), and it sounds just different enough to add even more auditory interest. The print book features graphic novel sections, which the audio production effectively evokes with music and sound effects, while Kowal uses a booming movie trailer voice to clearly distinguish them from the rest of the narrative. Listeners will be caught up in the suspenseful (if occasionally far-fetched) action. J.M.D. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2016 - AudioFile

2015-03-03
Cryptic clues in a Web comic put a Seattle teenager onto the trail of a deranged kidnapper and his victim. Three years after the (supposed) drowning of bosom friend Libby, 16-year-old May is shocked to see new stickers and other merch for "Princess X," an intrepid swordswoman in a puff-sleeved dress and sneakers that she and Libby had privately invented in fifth grade. The princess's recently posted online adventures tell a scary tale about escaping from a "Needle Man" years after being stolen as a replacement for his own dead daughter. They leave May convinced that Libby is still alive—hiding out from her clever, relentless captor and imbedding veiled messages in the comic that only May would catch. Said hints lead May and Trick, a hacker dude she goes to for help, on a quest through the city's seedier and underground quarters to encounters with Jackdaw (a gay, goth Robin Hood) and a desperate scheme to steal proof of the Needle Man's perfidy. Priest cranks the suspense somewhat by casting the kidnapper as both an IT expert and a killer, but because he mostly appears only in the emotionally charged, sparely drawn purple-and-black comics pages that Ciesemier scatters through the tale's first two-thirds, he remains, at best, a shadowy bogeyman. Promising elements aplenty, but they never fully mesh or deliver more than a passing chill. (Thriller. 11-14)

Kirkus Reviews