Evie winds up staying at a castle that is plagued with an outbreak of a disease and does her best to heal everyone that needs help.

The story is a fascinating look at what life is like for someone who appears intimidating and inspires fear but only wants to help people. She struggles a little with her new urge to eat other people, but it never gets enough in the way her healing nature to become a true problem. Though Evie ultimately does not want to be an ogre, she takes the curse in stride and uses it to learn more about other ogres and to protect the beings that they prey on. She is extremely even after she is turned into an ogre and faces extreme prejudice. Though not a princess by title, Evie exhibits all of the kindness and selflessness that you would expect from the protagonist of a princess story. My initial ire wore off as I continued reading about Evie's engaging and unexpected adventures. Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Eggmentioned in the author blurb that Gail thought Wendy was a fool for wanting to leave Neverland. For instance, she originally wrote Ella Enchanted because she never understood why Cinderella did everything she was told despite how horribly her stepmother treated her. However, Gail Carson Levine has always had strong opinions about classic fairy tales that inspired her cleverly irreverent novels. Anyone who knows the story knows that isn't the case at all. I was a bit miffed by her claim that the Beast from 'Beauty and the Beast' settled for Belle because she was the only one he could find to break the spell and not because he truly loved her. For someone from land of magic and fairy tales, she has some radical ideas about love. Even when she was turned into an ogre, she found it more of a nuisance than a horrific tragedy. Unlike Aza from my favorite Gail Carson Levine book, Fairest, Evie is a confident healer who doesn't easily get sad or frightened. Evie took some time to grow on me as a protagonist.

Fairest book gail carson levine