Wisdom's Kiss is a children's fairy tale akin to Shannon Hale's and Jessica Day George's. There is a princess, magic, a scheming villain, a suspiciously smart cat, romance and a happy ending.What distinguishes this tale from others in the genre is the book's format. Wisdom's Kiss is an assemblage of letters, diaries, a play, memoirs, encyclopedic entries, etc. Generally, I am quite fond of such narrative, as long as all formats are essential to the story and do not create redundancy. Here, howev [...]

I'd like to start off by saying that this is the first book I've ever read by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. I have Dairy Queen on the way to my house, a book I ordered after reading more than enthusiastic reviews by fellow GoodReaders and which I know is YA. So when I saw Wisdom's Kiss on NetGalley, I decided to give it a try.I'm pretty sure I can tell you that this is nothing like Dairy Queen, because this is a children's book. And a really weird one at that.In the little town of Bacio lives Trudy [...]

I love Catherine Gilbert Murdock's writing because it is intelligent, highly unconventional and always makes me laugh. Wisdom's Kiss is even more unconventional than her other books, and I would highly recommend it for brave readers. The storytelling is unusual with each character narrating their part in 2-3 page chapters, alternating between the script of a stage play, letters from one character to another, diary entries and heirloom stories passed on to a younger generation. The characters are [...]

I love this author's contemp YA's so was eager to try her fantasy. I am very sorry to say this book drove me crazy. I'm 2/3 of the way through and it's been a constant struggle. The story is told in an epistolary form (one of my favorites) but there are too many POVs. EIGHT! And a lot of it is a redundant telling of the story, which makes a very thin, weak plot unnecessarily long. There was quite a bit of humor and wit in the story, but it didn't make up for the weakness of the story or the char [...]

I wanted to love this book. It had a cute format, told through letters, autobiographies, encyclopedia entries, etc and each character had a unique voice. However, the format also served to distance me from the characters a little, and while the external plot was fairly sound, the characters themselves didn't seem to go through much transformation at all. I would recommend this book to people who are fans of diary-style fiction and lighthearted reads, but there's not too much substance here.Also? [...]

Overexcessive stylistic writing, a lack of plot movement, characters who seem to be more concerned with the number of curlicues they can insert in their writings than in being complex and likable It's a shame that the straightforward and heartfelt charm of her D.J. Schwenk novels has never translated into her fantasy forays. Tone down on the epistolary cuteness and focus more on giving readers a good and engrossing story!

Trudy is a young orphan with a gift for seeing the future. Tips is also an orphan, who struggles with the oppressive hate of his older brothers and the dismal future of running the family mill. They’ve been best friends since infancy, and Trudy hopes Tips is her future. When a man comes to take Tips as his apprentice to become a soldier, Trudy hates to see him go but knows it’s for the best.Six years later, when both are grown and waiting to be reunited, fate and politics intervene. Suddenly [...]

I loved this book. Its gorgeous cover caught my eye, and then the way it was told, through letters, diaries, plays etc, was just enough to entice me to read it. It is such a cute story, and I enjoyed all the different perspectives of the same events. I found many parts funny and romantic. I had not read Princess Ben yet, but I did after reading this. I prefer this book. I just had such a blast reading it.

Although not obviously apparent for most of the book, this is actually a reimagined fairy tale. The whole thing does read like a fairy tale, with princesses and betrayal and cats and magic. What makes this book really stand out is the method that Murdock uses to tell the story. Most of the plot unfolds through characters memoirs written ex post facto, diary entries or letters written to others. There are also little snippets of plays interspersed between the other formats. These generally depict [...]

Orphaned Trudy and the miller's son Tips have long been friends when Tips is offered an opportunity to become a solider. He becomes an apprentice to Felis el Gato and spends years away from Trudy, communicating only by mail. Trudy, who has a gift of foresight (to a certain extent anyway), stays in their village, hoping for his return. When Princess Wisdom, on her way to her wedding, and her grandmother, Nonna Ben, stop at Trudy's inn, they enlist her to become a lady-in-waiting, as their ladies- [...]

I'm surprised by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. This is completely different from her Dairy Queen series. It took a while to get into and understand all the people and introductions they had when it was their chapter. I got into it about a quarter or more of the way in. I thought it was a good story but there was too much confusion on my part by the way everything was layed out. I also didn't enjoy completely the way it was written but other times I did. Longer review to come.

Wonderful! The last three words (excluding the glossary) were a twist in itself!

Now this is what I call creative writing! Some people take issue with Murdock's use of multiple P.O.V.'s (eight in all!). However, as detailed in the author Q&A at the back of the book, Murdock did what a writer's supposed to: Tell the story. If the P.O.V. being used isn't serving the story, then change the P.O.V. or do as Murdock did and add new P.O.V.'s. Perhaps eight points of view seems excessive to some, but it works and what results is a richly layered and deeply nuanced tale. And even [...]

Original review posted on The Book Smugglers HERE This is the true story of the event known as Wisdom’s Kiss in which: a Kingdom was saved, hearts were broken, a Circus flourished, magical shenanigans were deployed and true love was found.In the Kingdom of Montagne, Princess Wisdom wishes for a life of adventure but finds herself about to settle down and get married; Fortitude, an orphaned kitchen maid, awaits for her childhood sweetheart to return from his travels; Tips, a soldier, misses his [...]

Originally posted at:longandshortreviews.cThe cover of this book has the words “A Thrilling and Romantic Adventure Incorporating Magic, Villainy and a Cat”. These words say it all. Princess Wisdom (Dizzy) becomes engaged to the man who has arrived to court her sister, Queen of Montagne. She travels with her grandmother (Ben - Queen Mother of Montagne) to her betrothed’s home. Crisis after crisis delays their arrival, eventually stranding them in an inn in Bacio with their ladies-in-waiting [...]

Catherine Gilbert Murdock said that she "enjoyed Wisdom's Kiss more than anything [she'd] ever created." Of the five books of hers I have read, I have to admit it was my least favorite. I adored her modern-day teen Dairy Queen series. It's not that I don't like fantasy--I really do very much. It's that WisK (the author's shorthand title) was told from eight (EIGHT!) viewpoints, which, while allowing for varied perspectives and dramatic tension, made it a bit hard for me to keep track of what was [...]

Had this book ended differently, it would have been a 4, maybe even 5 star book in terms of my personal enjoyment, but, it ended the way it did which added a level of frustration that marred my enjoyment.This book is basically a re-telling of Puss in Boots with a smattering of other fairy tale references thrown in, so I get why Tips ended up with the princess; that's what happens in the story. What was the point then, of having a love triangle which is not part of the original story? My frustrat [...]

1.5 starsThis book had a lot of great potential, but it ended up falling flat in a lot of ways. It took me a while to get into it because of all the different characters and perspectives, but eventually the action picked up a bit and I was intrigued. Then something specific happened with two of the characters (which I can’t reveal without being spoiler-y) and I seriously began to resent this book. I kept hoping it might get better, but it really didn’t.My first major complaint is all the dif [...]

Wissdoms kiss By:catherine Gilbert MurdockDo you like fairytales? If you do like fairytales like I do this is the book for you. Wisdom kiss is a story that is romantic and like a fairytale. You might also like it if you really like fairytales.The setting in my story is old kingdom the old of Montagne. This is important in my story because it is where it all takes place. The main characters in my story are Princess Wisdom, known as Dizzy, a soldier Fortitude, a cat and an orphaned maid. The confl [...]

2.5 starsAdequate and occasionally charming in its language, the varying styles can be a bit jarring. It moves from the third-person memoirs of Trudy to history book entries on the places and characters to letters from Ben to her granddaughter Temperance. Temperance is at home while Ben and her other granddaughter Wisdom/Dizzy travel to Farina for Dizzy to eb wed to Duke Roger. Then there are Dizzy's own diary entries and excerpts from a play detailing the events by an anonymous author and the o [...]

I liked this book enough to finish it and there were a number of things I thought Gilbert-Murdock did well. The plot was excellent as was the world building and the characterizations. The novel was, in essence, a screwball comedy of people falling in love with each others' boyfriends minus the jokes.What I didn't like was the style. The author told the story of (Wisdom? Trudy? Queen Ben? The Cat?) with 8 different POVs, one of which was written in screenplay form. (Note to the author: plays are [...]

This was was entertaining to read. It is told from various viewpoints; diaries, letters, histories, some true, some perhaps embellished. I lilked the style of it with those various voices. Unfortunately, it didn't quite all add up to a great story. It seems that the sum of the parts are far less than the whole in this case. It feels as if without the literary gymnastics, which are fun so I'm not complaining, this wouldn't be much of a story. Maybe because of the various focuses, it didn't feel t [...]

To be fair it warns you that it is written in many different voices. And most times I don't mind books written in differ POVs however, this became tedious.There are many different players and many different parts and the ending isn't at all as I hoped it would be. The main characters Trudy, Tips (Tomas) and Wisdom aka Dizzy. Not to mention Nonna Ben, Teddy, Felis and the list goes on.The book is largely clips from Trudy and Tips life from childhood to approximately 18 would be my guess. There is [...]

Upon reading this book, I felt the same way I felt finishing Princess Ben--lukewarm. There is just something missing from Murdock's fantasies--I loved her realistic series (Dairy Queen, etc.)though. This new title is a mix of diary entries, encyclopedia articles, memoirs, and third person storytelling, in an attempt to tell the story of three young people whose destinies intersect. Trudy is a beautiful servant in a village inn; Tips is her adored friend, with whom she is in love, but he's off wi [...]

Oh where to start?I really did not enjoy this book at all.No seriously, there is nothing about this book I can talk up.It was that bad.How many different points of view are too many?Three, four, five? Try eight.Yes EIGHT!!Once you take into account the diary entries, the encyclopedia entries, the letters, the play, the main characters, blah, blah, blah.FAR TOO MANY voices and often overlapping storytelling makes for very confusing and boring reading.It was a real CHORE to get through and to be h [...]

I wanted to love this book. Catherine Gilbert Murdock's Dairy Queen series is fantastic, with one of my favorite heroines. She has such an authentic, realistic voice. Truly, I had great expectations when this book caught my eye last time I as at the library.And not that the writing is bad. I just couldn't get into it. Most likely it was the variety of formats that threw me off - I never felt as if I got invested in any one character because things constantly shifted as far as view point and meth [...]

This is one of the best examples of "gutsy" writing I have ever seen. It is told from 8 different points of view--and it completely worksyou couldn't imagine it told any other way. The vocabulary is very sophisticated, the literary references are abundant and sometimes a little obscure, but I'd be surprised if either of these elements makes a single reader skip a beat. (Also, the author included a glossary which is almost as entertaining as the story.)I found the ending to be oh, so slightly uns [...]

First, I have to say that I have really enjoyed other books by this author, so I was very much looking forward to reading this one. However, the style of writing, while clever at first, started to drag the story down. By the middle of the book, you are dealing with 8 POV, some through letters, some through diary entries and there is even a play in there. I found that I was just getting annoyed and that the writing style made it so that I was not invested in any of the characters or the story.

This book was amazing! It was funny, intelligent--you know you're dealing with an educated author when you find yourself looking up words in the dictionary, clever, witty, and even suspenseful. The format of the book is fresh and different, and keeps the reader laughing all the way through.A definite recommend to anyone!

I don't even know what I just read. That was not a book, or even a story. That was a bunch of random accounts thrown together. There was very little plot, and what exsited of it was developed very poorly. I hate to say it, but this book was a failed attempt at originality.