Once Upon a Marigold Book Review

Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris is about a boy named Christian who gets ‘adopted’ by a troll named Ed and falls in love with a princess names Marigold. In the beginning of the book Ed finds Christian in the woods as a young boy and takes him home to spend the night in his cave and they would find his family in the morning. After a handful of arguments Christian wins and ends up spending the rest of his childhood living in a cave. At the age of seventeen Christian sends a note to princess Marigold after he’d been watching her from his telescope for a while and they become best friends/ pen pals. While learning more about Marigold he finds out she has a curse on her where whenever she touches someone she can hear their thoughts. Then one day Ed has a conversation with Christian about him moving on, going out into the world, finding a job and creating a life for myself and Christian decides to go across the river to the castle to find a job. After a while of working at the castle Marigold finds out that Christian works there and even though it doesn't say it you can tell they love each other even though Marigold was to be married off to someone else. While wandering the castle halls Christian hears Olympia, Marigolds mom, talking to her pet ferret about her plan to murder King Swithbert and Marigold to have the throne all to herself then tells Marigold about her mother's plan. On the day of the wedding Olympia being her crazy self locks Marigold and Christian in the dungeon for idiotic reasons until the wedding so they don't ruin anything. King Swithbert finds out about all the nonsense going on and unlocks Marigold out of the dungeon, during the beginning of the wedding about to say I do Christian comes bursting in on a flying contraption powered by his dogs to stop the wedding. While trying to save Marigold, Christian gets hit with an arrow and Marigold saves him by keeping her hands pressed to his wound, it must have been from her curse because after that it went away. Olympia ends up falling off a cliff and Marigold and Christian end up getting married after they find out that he's the rightful heir to the throne of Zandelphia.
    One of the main themes in the book is that love will always win if it's meant to be no matter who it's between. An example of how this theme is shown is how in the end even though Christian and Marigold both doubted that they would ever even meet they end up getting married. Another example is how when Marigold saved Christians life he broke her curse. A third example is that they both married their best friends and that's a sign that they were made to be together. That is why I think the main theme of this book is that love will always win if it's meant to be no matter who it's between.
     I would definitely recommend this book to other seventh graders, or anyone for that matter. I think all types of book lovers would enjoy reading this book. It's about love, adventure, hopes for a different life, friendship, dreams, new beginnings and good endings. I also think this book will help people realize that true love is out there and anyone can find it. That is why I would recommend this book to people.