Have to say, I finished this book and immediately decided to read through the books in the bibliography. Not right this minute, but they've been added to the ever-expanding list of things I must read eventually. (It's a very long list.) I'm particularly interested in reading more about Ida B. Wells, and the biography of Countess Bathory that argues against her famous bloodthirsty nature. Because there's something suspiciously excessive about those particular legends...

That's one of the themes that runs through this book: propaganda and public relations. It's not news to anyone that people who go against the power structures of the day tend to be demonised by those structures, and that often, their opinion of the renegade is the one stamped into history. So a lot of the rejected princesses in this book have clearly been slated beyond their desert, which is not to say that some of them haven't done particularly horrible things themselves, but then this book doesn't go very in-depth to any of them so there's not a great deal of rounded exploration of their characters. Which, fair enough, it's not here to do that - those studies are saved for the further reading section. Instead, this book's a sampler of those women who tend to have been shoved aside in history, complete with full-page, wide-eyed Disney representations of each. The artwork, I have to say, is very impressive, and many entries have explanations for all the details in the portraits, which I found really interesting. And it's written in a chatty, accessible style, which made the whole thing genuinely enjoyable to read. Fun and informative!