Bookish Thoughts: What Comes of Attending the Commoners Ball by Elisabeth Aimee Brown
Rating: Highly Recommend
A tale of heart and familial ties, Brown guides us through a world full of royal shenanigans, the struggle to survive, and a slow burn romance. Accompanied by lots of cheese.
This book was a wonderful, humorous journey through the eyes of a character concerned about tricksy Folk. It’s truly an intriguing look at holding to one’s beliefs while surrounded by others who think they’re merely superstition, and that sometimes accepting help is okay. Alongside the main character’s fondness for cheese and her aptitude for hard work runs a deep streak of familial love and a genuine care for those in her life.
Despite friends insisting it’s not a good idea to attend the Commoners Ball, Hester decides to be a guest—but only for the free meal. What she doesn’t expect is the crown prince’s flighty, heartbroken younger brother, Hugh, to take an interest in her and begin interfering with her life. Despite Lucas’s attempts to remedy the problems caused by his younger brother, Hester only feels more put-upon, as his help feels like a gift rather than a trade. And if there’s one thing she’s learned growing up in the country, it’s that one never accepts gifts—it’s how the Folk trap you.
Across a spectrum of outlandish declarations and absurd expectations from Hugh, a struggle to provide for her ailing father, and a growing fondness for Lucas, Hester must decide how firmly to hold to her beliefs about the Folk before they betray her entirely.
Some of my favorite quotes:
- This is not a love letter.
So why is my face suddenly hot? - My heart craves his proffered friendship, the warm compassion in his face, but it cannot be for me. All I’ve known—all I’ve been taught to know—is work and stubbornness and a bitterly proud self-reliance. I can’t change my whole worldview just because on mean thinks he can solve any problem.
- “People were meant to rely on each other. Life is more than bargains.”
Brown’s writing is absolutely refreshing in its humor and the way the characters play off each other with every interaction. The perfect contrast of Lucas and Hugh as brothers, and how they each interact with Hester, is one of my favorite aspects of this book. There’s a part of me that’s satisfied with the ending, and another part that wishes we had more stories of these characters and their interactions. They scrape against each other in the best ways, challenging long-held beliefs that seem logical but may be too rigid while also forging friendships and bringing forth humorous encounters.
To my reading, Brown also poses some interesting questions I find quite relevant in my life: how firmly and rigidly do we hold to our beliefs, even when those around us think we’re absurd and attempt to talk us out of those beliefs? How much do we trust ourselves, and at what point do we allow that trust to extend to others? Explored against the quick humor from the protagonist and some side characters, these questions hit deeper than I would have expected, and they’ve kept me thinking about this book long after finishing.
I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys humor in the vein of BBC’s Merlin, or anyone who loves a good story about the Folk’s trickster ways alongside intriguing twists. And let’s not forget the cheese.
