I must admit I liked the first half of the story much better than the second half. The font the words are printed in reminded me of the font from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (easy read, I knew), and it proclaimed itself to be “part comedy, part love story, part everything-but-the-kitchen-sink happily-ever-after turned upside down, inside out, and completely over the top!” Well, I don’t know about all that, but it was an entertaining read - a fairy tale with a modern, fun, whimsical feel to it. I totally judged a book by its cover on this one. I'm REALLY looking forward to Twice Upon a Marigold. *cute!!* And it's really fun.Īnyway, it goes on from there, but I don't want to give TOO much away. Marigold's mom is trying to hook her up with any eligible bachelor who will have her, and Christian is REALLY jealous. Then Christian and Ed decide he needs to go out on his own and experience the world, so he gets a job at the castle, and all sorts of craziness ensues. They become best friends, even though they've never met. But the pigeons can only hold a piece of paper big enough to hold 3 lines of text (and later 3 per side, I think), so they have these TINY conversations. ) In fact, he's so taken with her that he starts sending her messages via carrier pigeon.

And he has this telescope, and has been (very innocently) admiring the pretty little brunette princess (Marigold, 17) whose balcony happens to face the cave. So 13 years later, Christian (sometimes Chris) is a strapping guy. But the best part is that Ed has like ZERO grasp of clichés, and is CONSTANTLY mixing them up (like, 'I can see I'm beating my head against a dead horse' and 'After all, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the eager beaver.') Oh boy, those were great. Ed realizes he's gotta raise the kid right, so he gets a book of etiquette, and teaches the kid out of that. The kid turns out to be quite nice and resourceful (i.e. Okay, so it's about this 6-year-old boy, Christian, who runs away from home and ends up living with and being raised by a Troll, Edric (Ed) in a cave. the goal of the book wasn't to be cryptic), but it was just so sweet and innocent and SO funny! It was predictable (I guessed who Christian was in the first chapter, but whatever. I wouldn't hesitate to read this book to an 8-year-old (or younger, if they were interested).

This book was awesome! And, okay, I DO happen to have a thing for cheesy young-adult romance fairy-tales, but still, it was really clever and totally adorable! And CLEAN.

Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris