Never After: 5

This was one of the funniest books I've read in some time. Take Sleeping Beauty, the Princess and the Pea, Cinderella, and Rumplestilskin, add one take-no-prisoners princess, and you've got a great read. Not quite the British humor you'd see in Terry Pratchett, but great fun throughout. If you're looking for bodice-ripping romance, look elsewhere. If you want a thouroughly enjoyable, solid, humorous spin on fairy tales, try this book.

I agree with the reviewer from Hendersonville, NC that this book would make a great movie. As I read it, I could picture the characters' actions and facial expressions on the big screen (like in Shrek). The characters were very well developed as the novel progressed. It was altogether a delightful book.

Never After is a fairy tale within a fairy tale...several times over. If you are looking for passion, high drama, intrigue, or mystery...find another book. But, if you are a fairy tale lover with a funny bone, you've found what you're looking for.I was afraid that I would not like this book at first, but as soon as I met the main heroine, Vevila, I was hooked...The story starts out with a prince, who can only marry someone of equal or higher rank, on the hunt for a princess. He unfortunately lives during a time of severe princess shortages. He reads about a princess, cursed into eternal sleep, and goes on a quest to rescue her with his kiss. But even the best scribes can blow it, as the prince finds out. It's not a princess, but three identical princes who need a royal to awaken them with a kiss. But there is a lovely maiden asleep in their castle, so our prince, Athelstan, asks his cousin, Vevila, to break the curse for him. Since this will take her away from all her suitors, handsome yet boring certainly included, Vevila agrees. But the princes are guarded by their fairy godmother, and she will allow no one to kiss them until they have undergone a princess test...or two. So Vevila is locked up with a pile of straw and ordered to spin it into gold...and that's only the beginning.Includes spoofs of The Frog Prince, Cinderella, The Princess and the Pea, and lots more. It was hilarious...especially the fairy godmother who happens to resemble a wicked witch and is slightly, well, nuts really. Try this book! It's great.

I was in the booksotre looking for a book I had never read, when I found Never After. I had been there the day before and it wasn't there so it was almost like magic. I just got through reading it and I think that it was a very very good book. It was a mixture of Cinderella, Rumpelstilskin, Sleeping Beauty, The Princess and the Pea, and The Frog Prince. I just hope that this is made into a movie. You will Enjoy it.

There's something so appealing about a fractured fairy tale, and this book fractures several, with hilarious results. Is the tale of Sleeping Beauty really about a princess, or was there a mistake in the transcription of "3 princes"? What really happened to the princess who supposedly felt a pea through a tower of mattresses and blankets? Here is a Cinderella, a Rumpelstiltskin, a Frog Prince, that you never imagined.Some of the characters are, admittedly, a little flat. The wizards, while amusing, are never really revealed, nor is Prince Althelstan. The real draw is the tough, adventurous, independent-minded sort-of princess Vevila and her not-entirely-functional relationship with Rumpelstiltskin, who, for some reason, is determined to prove she's a real princess. The plot twists and turns and, at times, comes dangerously close to not making any sense. That, however, is part of the joy of a fractured fairy tale, and doesn't hurt the book one bit.It's not a deep or challenging book, but it *is* funny, charming, and clever. A great diversion for a lazy afternoon, one you'll probably want to read again.