I wanted to love this book so bad. I really, really did. The cover looked so enchanting and promising - and the blurb sounded like the perfect premise for an epic retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses. Honestly, I feel like my 12/13 year old self would have loved this book - I mean you have princesses (albeit poor ones), a dark villain, daddy issues, and a love interest. This is a recipe for a great book, but the characters just didn't cut it for me. 
 The main character Azalea did not feel mature enough to lead the story - I'm not 100% positive but based on the beginning of the book she's meant to be around 15 years old, but she behaves more along the lines of a 13 year old - which is annoying for a character who is meant to be the mother figure for her 11 sisters and future queen of her country. We get problem resolution in terms of her father, but we don't get to witness real character growth for any one in the story really. 
 Also, I found Azalea's constant need to have herself and her sisters dance somewhat annoying. I know, I know, it's the premise of the actual tale but my sister is a dancer so I know that dancing is a an art and it takes a lot of work, so I kept wishing that the author would've taken a more realistic approach to it - I wanted the dancing to be more strenuous and quiet, rather then something that even the youngest girls seemed to master after a couple tries or an evening spent on their toes. I don't know, for such an important aspect of the story, the dancing was not as an intense and integral part of the story as I would have liked. It also could have bore more weight metaphorically (possibly). 
 I also didn't feel like any one of the girls were ready to be married - they were still incredibly young and immature by the end of the story, and if the king was as caring as we were led to believe then I don't expect he would have married them off as quick as all that. 
 Despite my reservations, I honestly still liked this book. It wasn't everything I hoped it to be but it also wasn't terrible. I definitely would recommend it if you're in middle school and enjoy a decent fairy-tale retelling every now and again.