Blog Tour, Favorite Panel & Review: The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

Crushed on by kelly, on February 1, 2018, in Blog Tour, Comics/Graphic Novels, Reviews / 3 Comments

Blog Tour, Favorite Panel & Review: The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang is such a beautiful story and book and I am so excited to be a part of the blog tour! The Prince and the Dressmaker releases on February 13th and is the perfect love story to celebrate Valentine’s Day! Check out my favorite panel below and my thoughts! Thank you so much to First Second for the opportunity to read an early copy, which in no way influenced my thoughts or review.

 

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

Category: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Romance, Graphic Novel
Publication: February 13th, 2018; First Second
Purchase: Amazon, TBD

Paris, at the dawn of the modern age:

Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride—or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone. At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia—the hottest fashion icon in the world capital of fashion!

Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances—one of only two people who know the truth: sometimes this boy wears dresses. But Frances dreams of greatness, and being someone’s secret weapon means being a secret. Forever. How long can Frances defer her dreams to protect a friend? Jen Wang weaves an exuberantly romantic tale of identity, young love, art, and family. A fairy tale for any age, The Prince and the Dressmaker will steal your heart.

 

Favorite Panel & Review:

[book rating=5/5]

 

Wow, how to narrow it down to a single favorite panel is hard. This book is phenomenal. I couldn’t narrow it down, so I had to choose a non-spoilery page since some of the best ones give a lot of story away. In this 2-page spread is about how Frances breaks out onto the scene of design. A very defiant young debutante wants nothing to do with her mother’s insistence of going to the ball to meet the Prince, and so she tells Frances, the dressmaker, to make an outfit that shows off that she is in hell. Well, Frances really knocks it out of the park and the young lady shows all the stuffy society ladies how she feels about being forced to attend balls. I just love the attitude in these pages. Really shows you exactly the type of book you will be reading! So fun and so damn perfect.


The Prince and the Dressmaker is a beautiful book full of coming-of-age love, acceptance, and finding the joy in your life. This is a heartwarming story and the art and colors are just stunning.

Frances is a seamstress, who has been working as a tailor in Paris. When tasked to make a last minute dress for a ball to celebrate the Prince of Brussels debut in Paris, she finds inspiration to design something of her own overnight. She turned heads and caught the eye of a new client who hires her exclusively.

Prince Sebastian has a secret, he only feels alive when dressed in spectacular gowns and taking Paris society by storm. He is supposed to be finding a wife, and instead he is entertaining high society as Lady Crystallia.

This book is heartwarming, full of hope that you can be who you are and still be accepted by the world, your family, and more importantly find love and happiness. Fashion may be the beauty on the page and the plot inspiration, but more importantly this book addresses societal pressures of growing up and of gender non-conformity.  

The Prince and the Dressmaker is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful reads and I recommend this one to every single person. I loved it so damn much!

 

Author Bio: Jen Wang

Jen Wang is a cartoonist and illustrator currently living in Los Angeles. Her works have appeared in the Adventure Time comics and LA Magazine. She recently illustrated Tom Angleberger’s Fake Mustache. Her graphic novels Koko Be Good and In Real Life (with author Cory Doctorow) were published by First Second.

Links:

Website  **  Twitter  **  Goodreads  **  Instagram

 

Tags: , , , , , , ,


3 responses to “Blog Tour, Favorite Panel & Review: The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang