Book review: I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest

This summer I am delving a bit more into the young adult fiction that I have always enjoyed but had set aside.  I read I Am Princess X over July 4 weekend and even the view of Lake Norman from the porch could not make me put the book down. The setting is my favorite U.S. city, Seattle, and the attention to detail of that area made me realize all too well that it has been far too long since my last visit. I especially appreciated the incorporation of the Underground where Jackdaw and Libby hid, as I did a great guided tour of that area and learned its history. I thought I even caught a reference to the Garment District as an aside. 

 May and Libby are unlikely best friends, one very wealthy, one struggling at the lower end of the middle class bracket, but the friendship was thankfully unbreakable. And comics; there are still many school-aged children who think comics are "for boys," while thankfully that is changing, and May and Libby taking the traditional princess and making her independent, hardcore, a fighter, was great to see.  Needle-Man is a compelling villain, one whose pain makes him sympathetic to a point but not enough to keep him from being what a villain should be: hard-core, scary, and deserving to be taken down. 

Technology is changing so fast and teenagers are often the first to pick up the latest tech tools and methods, so it's hard to find a book that incorporates all the tools that young adults are using now, as the tech almost becomes dated before the book can reach publication. But it was easy to read this book and feel that I was in Seattle with these kids in 2015 or 2016. They are digital natives, using their computers and phones as a first and last step in solving their problems, and there is the added bonus of Trick and Jackdaw leaving an undercurrent of warning about Internet safety. 

 The characters are developed well enough that I had to keep reading because I was so concerned about them: would Libby be found? Would May and Trick and Jackdaw be safe? What about May's fantastically supportive father? Could the heroes put their lives back together and repair the mistakes they had made before the book ever began?