Guilty Pleasure: A Review of The Adventure of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle

Patrick Rothfuss was in the area this weekend, doing an interview, reading and book signing hosted by the wonderful indie bookstore Snowbound Books.  My boyfriend has a copy of his first book and got it signed; I tagged along for the heck of it.  I'm glad I did!  The reading was of The Adventure of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle, a picture book that is -not- for children.  This book deserves to be highlighted as a "guilty pleasure," because I sure can't justify getting it for a school library collection!

Statistics
Checkouts: This isn't appropriate for a school library!
Typical reader: Unsupervised children

Synopsis: The Princess lives in a marzipan castle with her stuffed bear companion, Mr. Whiffle.  They have adventures, and the story has three endings.

My Goodreads rating: 4 stars

Oh my, what a book!  The story to the first ending would be appropriate for children.  The second is kind of creepy.  And the third ... well, it's quite the shock!  I heard Mr. Rothfuss read it, I saw it on the pages with the pictures to accompany the words, and I looked between the man and the book several times in disbelief.  It could not sink in for a while.  But if you read through the book again and look more carefully at the pictures, you'll find that the outcome was foreshadowed.

To have seen this in the presence of the genius behind this, and to have heard him read this book, was a real treat.  But woe onto the parent who doesn't notice the warning on the book.  Your child will probably have nightmares from this one.