No. I quit. I'm not going to force myself to slog through this mess of utterly selfish characters; I don't find it amusing to see them humiliated, I don't see anyone I want to root for (OK, Elizabeth isn't bad. But not worth the rest of it), and I dislike manipulators even if the rest of the story is good (and nearly everyone here is a manipulator, at one level or another). I got almost half-way through the first book, I think. I checked out the end of the book and a) it wasn't really a conclusion and b) no one seems to have changed much. So no thanks. ( )

This fairy-tale mash-up is light, amusing, and laugh-out-loud funny at times. The source of much of the humor is Prince Charming. Oh, Charming. He was raised to be the slayer of the dragon, the hero of the realm, but he prefers to idle away the hours by using horrid couplets to woo pretty women. When a pair of young farmer siblings kill the dragon and destroy Charming's prophesied glory, his life goes topsy-turvy. While the book is overall pretty breezy, there are touches of darkness here and there due to the antagonist, a figure of great sadness and complexity.

In the second half, I was amused by the take on the Seven Dwarves and the very meta, carefully-veiled references to Disney, complete with footnotes. The role of the Beast brought depth and revelation to the tale, too. Overall, the mood is downright fluffy, and that was perfect since I was fighting a migraine. I wanted something to make me smile, with a guaranteed happy ending, and this absolutely delivered. ( )