Never After by Rebecca Lickiss

Wow! Was this book bad!

This is one of those humorous fantasy books, in which everything is sweetly parodied and lots of puns are thrown in, etc.

A Prince in search of a princess finds a castle in which all of the inhabitants are asleep due to the spell of a fairy godmother (as in Disney's Sleeping Beauty), including the girl of his dreams. However, he needs to wake up 3 princes before he wakes up his love so he enlists the help of his tomboy cousin (a princess) and his boyhood friend, who happens to be a newly graduated wizard and they all go back to the castle for adventure, treasure and love. Along the way, Rumpelstiltskin (yes, that one) gets involved.

My review:

This book was so irritating that I got to page 85 and called it quits. The author seems to be more bent on being cute than she is on advancing the story (which had gone nearly nowhere in the last 25-30 pages I did read). I was afraid that if I read it any longer, I would somehow be sucked in and trapped like the people in the castle. Maybe that would have been fine - at least I'd be asleep and not reading the book!

I rate this book 1 star out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Never After by Rebecca Lickiss.

Reviewed in 2004.