The book lets you ease into things if you need to. Caterina Sforza’s story towards the end of the book is rated 5 for maturity and includes mentions of violence, rape, and abuse – but Andamana’s story which begins on page 25 is rated only 1 for maturity with no other triggers. The stories are organized in a way that it starts out with some pretty tame stories at the lower maturity levels and starts building up to the harder stuff. Or, at least, it’s the truth of their stories (the author admits that some of the stories may be embellished or some facts may be incorrect).ĭon’t worry that you might read something you’re not prepared for, either. So the stories are full of dark content at times because that’s the truth. But the whole point of Rejected Princesses has been to put the spotlight on dangerous, deviant, and determined women whose stories aren’t necessarily as heroic or simple as many of the stories you may have heard about “admirable” women before. If you haven’t checked out the website before that might surprise you. violence, rape, abuse, sex, and self-harm). The stories are all rated for maturity and are accompanied by warnings at the very beginning explaining what sort of content might be included (i.e. There’s also a more streamlined rating system. Each woman’s story is accompanied by just one large, detailed illustration that sometimes comes with commentary at the end of the story explaining why the author decided to depict her that way. The book takes that formatting and expands upon it. At the top of each entry there are also designations with movie-style ratings for the content and more. Porath was an animator at Dreamworks so his entries on the website (and now in the book) are accompanied by pretty awesome, cartoon-ish illustrations of each of the ‘rejected princesses’ he features as well as comics of their full stories in some cases. The website is really cool and it’s full of stories of girls and women throughout the ages doing amazing things. That eventually grew into the Rejected Princesses website – and then this full-fledged book that we’re reviewing today. He and his colleagues started trying to come up with badass ladies from history who would never get the princess treatment. Jason Porath came to that conclusion, at least, while he was working for Dreamworks. When people think of memorable women they either look to Disney-fied princess and fairy tales or, often, the women whose achievements and advancements have been considered proper and appropriate for history to retell.

But the vast majority of people have not. Everyone has heard of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty – but have you ever heard of Nzinga Mbande from Angola? How about the sisters Trung Trac and Trung Nhi? Or Boudica? Now, before anyone gets upset and rushes to our comments section to say ‘Of course, I have! They are some bad ass women!’ let me say that I’m sure some of you have.

Rejected princesses by jason porath