Published February 2018 via First Second
★★★
Frances just wants to make dresses—someday she'd like to be a famous designer, but for now she's happy enough as a seamstress...more or less. When she's hired to work for a royal, though, things change: Prince Sebastian wants nothing more than to take the world by storm, wearing one gorgeous dress after another.
This is energetic and lively, with playful illustrations (and, credit to Frances, some truly fabulous gowns). I struggled a little with the very feel-good ending: The book is set in Europe in the past, and although there have always been queer and gender-non-confirming people making their place in society, the climax at the end here just didn't feel realistic for the time and place. And maybe that's the point; it's basically a fantasy of acceptance and self-expression. I do wonder what this would have felt like with a more ambiguous location, though. I also would have preferred romance to be taken out of the mix—again, this is a bit of a fantasy thing (prince falls for commoner), but I really liked Frances and Sebastian's dynamic as friends, and some of that was lost when they went all googly-eyed for each other.
Still lots of fun, but left me wondering in the end. 3.5 stars.
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