Thanks so much to NetGalley for the free Kindle book! My opinions are my own and are freely given.

I loved this book so much ❤️ Although the main fairytale this story is based on is The Twelve Huntsman, it incorporates aspects from many others, like Rapunzel, Cinderella and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It starts out with telling you a short synopsis of the fairytale, and then telling the reader she is going to tell you what really happened, as she is the Princess in the story, so she would know.

I especially loved how the author wrote the gay and trans characters. They were not there treated as less than or put in the book the same way corporations put out merch every June. Rather, the characters were in the book because gay people exist. Even though the story is fictional, there every day things written in to the conversation. Like a character having to wear a binder for days and finally being able to take it off, which just thinking about the scene is so emotional, as I know so many people who have been in those situations. Which should never happen, but unfortunately it does.

Zero smut in the book. There is one implied sex scene and some kissing, but that's all. For those people who want to know smut level.

The book isn't set up for a sequel at all, but I would love more books set in this world! It was so good!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the opportunity to read this arc! 3.5/5 stars

Hey Grimm fairytales lovers this book is for you! A fun twist on the tale of the 12 huntsman/Rapunzel it’s about the other woman, the stepsister or the other princess “rival”. I thought it was a really fun and refreshing take since most of the time it isn’t about the other character and their perspective. The author was funny and I felt like you could really feel their personality shine through with their writing. Which I always love. Not only is this about the 12 huntsman but it still manages to weave other fairytale stories into the story as well, with many meta references. While I did find the references to other fairytales fun Easter eggs, at times it was a little too much and to the point where it was cheesy at times. This was still a fun read especially for someone who loves fairytales. With twists and turns I personally did not see coming. It’s the perfect ode to a fairytale and then also poking fun of the classic tales. A parody I would say! It’s fun, queer and shows that even the middle child deserves their story!

This book is all sarcasm and parody and no actual plot. This is meant to be a parody of every fairy tale, but it was more just a string of jokes added together into a book. There doesn't seem to be any plot or fleshed out characters to push this story along. Not for me.

I knew as soon as I read the prologue that I was going to love this book. The casual and funny retelling of The Twelve Huntsmen was a great start. The whole book was so funny and didn't take itself seriously at all. It felt unique to me and I just really really enjoyed it.

This was a highly entertaining read, mixing the humorous vibes of The Princess Bride with traditional fairytales, including Rapunzel and The Twelve Huntsmen. After the prologue, I immediately thought “this book is going to be absolutely ridiculous” and it didn’t let me down. It still had a solid plot that kept you intrigued throughout. If you’re looking for a fantasy read that’ll have you shaking your head and laughing out loud, give this one a read!

Thank you to Dial Press for the gifted copies in exchange for my honest review!

"It didn't feel like I was walking into happily ever after. Not exactly. Those are reserved for the ends of stories, and this was just beginning." What an amazing last line!!! But I get ahead of myself.

I loved this book. With revamping of classic fairytales, it's easy to fumble or be too heavy handed with references. There were references galore in This Princess Kills Monsters, but they were so well done. Either blink and you'll miss it nods to Cinderella or The Little Mermaid or straight scathingly funny reads of Hansel and Gretel. It was fun to keep an eye out and try spot every reference.

The writing style was so reminiscent of Douglas Adams in everyway that we all love Douglas Adams for. So effortlessly absurd and sharp. I read passages from the opening "story" that Melilot tells the reader to my partner, and there were times we were wheezing so hard from laughter we couldn't catch our breath. A line that I loved was "I doubt anyone who used to live in a mouth is fussy about getting wet." This book had be laughing in nearly every chapter. And still kept the epic fantasy feeling. The final battle was giving me major Lord of the Rings energy. I couldn't stop reading.

The characters? Stunning, every one of them. It's not often that like every character in a book, let alone the villain! Melilot, our heroine.... well one of them anyways...quick as a whip and SO FUNNY!!!! I honestly loved every character in this book. It almost felt like I was reading the transcript of the best session of DND.

This was a fun read from start to finish and I would say it's a solid 5 stars.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Dial Press, and Random House for giving me the chance to read this before it was published!!
It will be out on 6/17/2025.

This was a lot of fun! It was a fairytale retelling in every sense of the genre, & was full of twists, turns, & surprises that made it very entertaining & easy to read. I do think I got. a bit overwhelmed by how many fairytales were mentioned & combined, but that may be of my own fault.

I very much enjoyed this book. It is a satirical and queer take on a Grimm fairy tale that I had never heard of before (The Twelve Huntsmen). At times it seemed a little TOO silly and I felt myself wondering if this book was meant for adults and then one of the characters would say "fuck" and I wondered that no longer. The plot felt a little disjointed in the first half of the book, and I felt like I had a difficult time following what was going on. Overall, I did enjoy it and I especially liked the love story between the two main characters.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC!

4 stars

I’ve been dying to read this book since I first saw it. I was so excited to get this arc copy!
It did not let me down either, it hit every spot, and I hope to see more like this by this author. What a fun wild read.

I featured This Princess Kills Monsters in my 25 books to read in 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp-649fbbVw as well as my June 2025 new releases video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q31xhbo1tE, and though I have not read it yet, I am so excited to and expect 5 stars! I will update here when I post a follow up review or vlog.

This Princess Kills Monsters by Ry Herman was cute, quirky, and honestly just fun. It leans hard into satire and humor, which I really enjoyed, especially with all the fairytale references scattered throughout. It doesn’t try to be deep, and that’s kind of the point—it’s fluffy, a little chaotic, and perfect if you’re in the mood for something light and low-stakes.

I loved the diversity in the cast and how the book often flipped the traditional fairytale narrative to show the “other side.” The prose is super whimsical and sarcastic in a way that worked for me—it felt like it could sit comfortably in the comedy genre while still delivering that cozy fantasy vibe.

That said, the pacing was a bit uneven, and even though it’s labeled as adult, it leaned pretty heavily into stereotypical YA territory. Not necessarily a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

Overall, this isn’t a book that’s going to change your life, but if you’re looking for something light and fun between heavier reads, it definitely delivers.
Thank you to Ry Herman, The Dial Press, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. On Sale June 17th, 2025

This Princess Kills Monsters is so much fun!

There’s fairy tales, magic, subversiveness, and a whole lot of humour. I thought this was very Princess Bride meets Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

Princess Meliot is the middle sister with decidedly less magical power than her stepsisters. When her sorceress queen stepmother decides to marry her off to a king of a non-magical kingdom, all of a sudden she’s a very important person in a kingdom in strife.

I loved all the characters, the representation and whimsy of this book. Honestly, the perfect lil fantasy pride month read.

This book was so joyful and fun. It's like every fairytale you think you know has been turned on its head, and you are getting a whole new read on the situation through Melilot's eyes.

Melilot, the least magically gifted of three sisters, has been sent to a neighboring kingdom by her powerful sorceress stepmother for an arranged marriage with its king. After an encounter with spider-wolf hybirds along the road, and a timely rescue by a group of identical huntsmen, she hides her identity until she is certain she's safe in this new kingdom. She's not--there's definitely something dangerous when spider-wolf hybrids are wandering around--but she's encountered way worse on the many quests her stepmother has sent her on over the years. Plus, she's got Sam, one of the huntsmen who has caught her eye, and a potential ally in her betrothed's older sister, Angelique.

I was grinning through the whole story. Loved the characters, the irreverant take on well-known tales, the queer representation, and the empathy even the most apparently sinister and dangerous characters evoke.

4.5 stars 🌟

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC! This Princess Kills Monsters is a delightful romp perfect for fans of Galavant and The Princess Bride.

Our story follows Melilot, a disgruntled princess who is tired of the endless errands she must run to appease her stepmother, a wicked sorceress who rules her kingdom. For her latest chore, Melilot has been ordered to a neighboring kingdom under instructions to marry their prince. What ensues is a number of failed assassination attempts, cross-dressing huntsman, a misogynistic talking lion, and a whole lot of tongue in cheek fun.

This novel had me genuinely laughing and grinning as I flipped through each chapter. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and yet it has some poignant reminders about gender roles, queer identities, and the complexity of human relationships. I had so much fun with this book and I can’t wait for the rest of you to read it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Dial Press Trade Paperback for providing the ARC.

What an absolutely delightful book!

This book is such a fantastic mishmash of fairy tales, tropes, and more, satirically written and absolutely hilarious. Melilot is such a fantastic character, and you can really see how Herman's prose shines through in her story. She is sarcastically funny with her dry wit and her self righteous anger towards her stepmother and the situation that she puts her in. I love that despite everything, she is still very self-sufficient and prefers to take on tasks herself instead of damsel-ing it up as one would expect a princess to do. If there is one thing that I really enjoy, it's when expectations are subverted, and this book has that in spades.

This book is a chaotic good time, filled with adventure, magic, fairy tales and more. If you're like me and enjoy a seamless blend of fairy tales and tropes, and then turning them on their head, then this book is for you.

This book was a mix of every fairytale you could imagine. It was random and weird and I enjoyed it more than I thought. We follow Melilot as she’s sent on a journey to marry the king of another kingdom, who is already engaged to someone else, but she doesn’t know that. Along the way she set upon by beast, decided to lie about who she is and falls in love with someone else. All while figuring out who she meant to be, and where she fits in. Like I said this was a little random but a good time.

This Princess Kills Monsters takes fairy tales and their tropes, mixes them into one world, and turns them on their head-- and it's hilarious. The overarching theme of stories and the power of them and how they're told really resonated with me.

Melilot's keeps going on impossible quests. The most recent of which relies on Melilot getting past three sphinxes determined to eat her, but not before she solves some riddles and listens to some bad poetry. But that quest is rendered null and void when she comes across her half-sisters Calla and Jonquil, who've already completed said quest. Melilot is understandably annoyed; not at her sisters, really, but at the evil nag of a queen (her stepmother, naturally) who keeps assigning her tasks while still showing blatant favoritism to her own daughters. Melilot's rebelled before; but that didn't end well. So when her stepmother announces she's to go to another kingdom and marry their King, there's not much that she can do about it. So she's off to meet her appointed fiancé when her carriage is attacked by bizarre hybrid monsters and she's rescued by six (of twelve) identical masked men. It's clear nothing around her can be trusted, so Melilot pretends to be her own handmaiden to try to get to the bottom of this latest ridiculous quest, and hopefully avoid death or a loveless marriage.

This book has the absolute funniest prologue I think I've ever read. I was literally crying from laughter. I don't really annotate books, but I highlighted SO many funny parts on my digital copy to amuse myself again later. Ry Herman's prose also intricately weaves all sorts of fairy tales and folktales together seamlessly, so you immediately appreciate the ridiculousness of various tropes and scenarios. With the juxtaposition of the two kingdoms, they show how both extremes can be utterly nonsensical, from Skalla's magical yet convoluted land in which all tales exist simultaneously and in unexpected ways, or with Tailliz's mundane, conservative nature where fear and tradition rule.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book; sadly, once Melilot <spoiler>turns into a lake</spoiler>, the sequence of events became far less clear to me. It was harder to follow and understand what exactly was happening until the climax, which was rather jarring. I'd also have preferred to have the characters fleshed out a bit more, so it felt like the stakes were higher.

All of that said, I still found the book a fun read, and would 100% recommend it to anyone who can appreciate the chaos of fairy tales and nursery rhymes while also acknowledging they're inherently ridiculous. If you loved Disney films and fairytales growing up and can laugh about it now (and think Enchanted is one of Disney's best works), this is a great book to pick up!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press Trade for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review posted to StoryGraph: June 13, 2025 (https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/7aef134c-ae30-427a-b210-8552a857ed8e?redirect=true)
Review posted to Instagram: PENDING

If you like goofy stories kind of told like old fairytale you will really like this one. There is a bunch of really clever Easter eggs that hint at stories like the tooth fairy, and trolls and what not. If you like anything that amie Kaufman or Megan spooner have written than this book is right up your alley. Super cute and quirky with a lot more heart thrown in this was a fun read for me. Really recommend to people who like folk tales and fairy tales.

I enjoyed this book so much!

I was not expecting it to be so witty and satirical, I love a good fairytale retelling and this is probably my new favorite one. So many chaotic characters, weird quests, and even weirder villains.

If you’re into light hearted feminist fantasy with LGBTQIA romance, this is something you definitely should read.


I could see this being an anime and I definitely want to buy any special editions coming out.

‘This Princess Kills Monsters’ is an offbeat story with plenty of magic, a fairy tale retelling, queer representation, and wild happenings.

This book was not for me but is perfect for those looking for an off-beat magical fairytale story.