Student Review: Palace of Mirrors (Haddix)

Title: Palace of Mirrors
Author: Margaret Peterson Haddix
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy
Pages: 297
Ratings: 4 out of 5 stars


Cecilia is 14 years old and her parents the king and queen of the kingdom Suala were murdered when she was a baby. So to keep Cecilia safe she was whisked away and given a fake identity. And a replacement princess, Desmia, was put in for her. As Cecilia gets older, it becomes harder to keep her secret. One night her house is attacked. She ends up sneaking away and confiding everything about her real identify to her best friend Harper. Cecilia decides that she can’t live watching someone else do what she is supposed to do. After Harper and Cecilia travel to the Palace of Mirrors where Desmia lives they run into two problems. One being that Desmia doesn’t believe them, and two, there are 12 other girls along with Cecilia who also claim that they are the true princess.


I am very glad that I chose this book and got to read it because it was truly a magical book I had never heard before. The author does an amazing job on the storyline, not one chapter was predictable. This literary technique kept me on my feet while reading this book forcing me to find resolution and get to the end. The emotions the author puts in words for the character make you feel like you are going through the same thing as the character.


The theme of this book is multiple things, but I think the most important theme is coming of age because in the beginning of the book Cecilia is very immature about difficult circumstances she is put into when she is traveling to the palace. She doesn’t really understand how to take bad news. Another theme to this book is, trusting and caring for your friends because they will always be there for you and this is a big factor for Cecilia because everything that happens through the book she doesn’t realize that her best friend Harper was there the whole time with her.


I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars because the storyline was the best I have ever read. But I felt that the book was lacking in description of the setting; sometimes the author just flat out said where the character were instead of vividly describing it. Overall I would strongly recommend that you read it.


Think about what it would be like to think you knew exactly who you were with maybe even a little secret and then once you have the guts to say that secret have your true identity stripped from you. Who are you then? Anybody?
--Marisa, 8th grade

A very popular author here at EJH!