I love this series. What I love the most: a prim and perfect and pink princess becomes... the Princess in Black! She fights a ton of monsters in this new installment, with the monster alarms continuously interrupting her birthday party. In the end, the idea that a "normal" "girly" girl, one who likes friends and presents and pink and glitter rings, can also be a kick-butt action hero is perfect. And as a recent article pointed out while talking about the newest Star Wars, this is the PERFECT book for boys. Because while girls need role models like this, boys need them, perhaps even more.

What I dislike: Princess Magnolia's unicorn is named Frimplepants. Frimplepants turns into... Blacky. BLACKY!?! Not "Midnight" or "The Dark Horse of Doom" or "Pony Avenger," but .... "Blacky." So disappointing. (I just looked back at my thoughts on PIB1 and found that this frustration is merely a continuation of that which I felt after reading the first in the series. I guess it's too late to change his name now.)

I also wish the Goat Boy had a little more oomph. He lost a little personality in this second book. And while I loved seeing the party guests show up as different cultures, it was distracting to look at them all and wonder whether they were overstereotyped. Clearly, more diverse books means that we (hopefully) won't need every book that pokes a toe in that direction to be everything and do everything, but in the meantime, it would be nice to have a Monster-fighting Princess surrounded by culturally diverse characters who also defy their stereotypes.

Bonus: I found this gem on Shannon Hale's Goodreads page: http://oinks.squeetus.com/2015/10/bonus-secret-epilogue-to-the-princess-in-black-2.html