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.

3.5

This Princess Kills Monsters is a fun spin on the classic fairy tales ◡̈ I had a challenging time feeling connected to the characters, but I thought it was silly and made me laugh throughout. One of those lighthearted stories that doesn’t take itself too seriously!!

If you’re a fan of classic fairytales definitely give this one a go!

Thanks so much to Random House for the ARC in exchange for my review!

This is a 3.75. This book wasn't bad. I found it to be extremely cute, heavy on the satire and humor and loved all the different fairytale references, but the book just felt like fluff. Thats not a bad thing and I think this would be a perfect palate cleanser or someone looking for an easy not super high stakes book. Because while there are battles and conflicts the book and characters just aren't super deep. They did feel a little surface level even though they do delve into their thoughts/feelings and deeper issues (self-worth, family drama and misogyny), but it still just felt very surface level I think because they were coming across with a funny antidote so thus it lost some effect. Like she would talk about how she was always being targeted by her stepmother to go on these quests and the quests would be so ridiculous your more focused on the humor than connecting with her over her stepmother issues. It felt like the book was more focused on the satire aspect of the writing than adding depth to the story which makes for a very fun read but very one note that I was not super invested in.
I think Melitot was interesting and clever who wants to be more as she has classic middle child syndrome and feels to be left wanting as she can't seem to measure up against her step siblings and she resents her stepmother. But while she feels likes she can't measure up like her step siblings I loved the three of them and their relationship as they truly loved and supported one another. For the romance I could see the romance with Sam one of the huntsmen who you find out is a transman and while they did have some light chemistry there was no real build up to their romance as a lot of their "flirting" was really light banter and storytelling. But it didn't come out of left field, and it was cute.
This book has some queer love representation not just with Melitot but also with her older stepsister who is married to a woman who was an elf, I think. The prince also comes off as Bi-curious, but I don't know if that is accurate considering who he was attracted to.
Overall, this was a fun humorous book that I am sure many will enjoy, and I had fun reading it, but I was left wanting a more depth and not all fluff.

This book is about a princess Melilot who has been sent by her oppressive stepmother to marry the new king of another kingdom. On one hand she is happy that she will no longer be sent out on dangerous and ridiculous quests by her stepmother where she usually ends up being rescued by her more talented sisters but on the other it seems that someone in this new kingdom is out to kill her as well. While that is somewhat normal her, she was looking for a fresh start. The attacks start enroute to meet her fiancé with giant wolf-spiders that result in her being rescued not by her sisters this time but by 12 masked huntsmen who bear a nearly identical resemblance to one another. But when she arrives in the new kingdom the attacks don't stop, and she is also having to deal with a talking lion who keeps having these weird gender-based tests and her fiancé the king doesn't seem to realize that one of his huntsmen is previous fiancé and true love just in pants and a mask. But as she tries to figure out what is going on with this kingdom and attacks, she is having to fight her own growing attractions to not just one of the huntsmen but also her fiancés sister. But Melilot can't afford any distractions because if these mysteries are not uncovered, they will have dire consequences for her and the kingdoms.

I received an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.