A very serious, mathematically inclined teenage girl is shocked to learn that her father is not dead as she had previously believed but rather is the ruler of an enchanted kingdom.
The no-nonsense, unimaginative mathematical stereotype of the protagonist may be useful in setting up the underlying psychological conflict of the plot, as a girl who never liked "fairy tales" essentially comes to live in one. However, I still worry that it will reinforce the false stereotype that mathematicians are somehow less capable of dealing with anything unusual than other people. For her, as with many fictional characters, math seems more like a security blanket to hide behind from anything that might cause discomfort than the powerful and interesting tool that I think it actually is.
I have not had a chance to really read the book, only to browse through the pages that are available for free on Amazon, but most of the "math" I saw took the form of pseudo-equations such as "1 life in the real world + 1 secret life in the fairy tale world = a double life" and "Disappearing Fathers = Mild Amounts of Shock".
Still, many of the readers who reviewed this book on Amazon had very positive things to say about it and I hope to have a chance to read it myself someday. (If you have read it, please write to me so that I can post your thoughts and comments here!)
Thanks to the author for bringing this book to my attention.
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