This Princess Kills Monsters

Read Time: 3 Minutes

This Princess Kills Monsters by Ry Herman takes one of the Grimm Brothers’ stranger fairy tales – The Twelve Huntsmen – and runs it through a playful, self-aware remix. In the original, a jilted bride disguises herself and eleven lookalikes as huntsmen to win back her prince. Herman keeps the bones of that idea but blows it out into something far bigger: a mashup of fairy-tale tropes, irreverent humour, and a quest that feels both familiar and wonderfully skewed.

At the centre is Princess Melilot, who isn’t exactly the victim of a cruel stepmother as fairy tales would have you expect. Her stepmother, the queen, actually promised to raise her as her own daughter. The “evil” part is mostly in Melilot’s head, fuelled by grudges and rebellion.

She bristles at being given strange, storybook tasks like collecting moonlight in a box, stealing a dragon’s toenail, and other nonsensical things, and her stubborn refusal to play along lands her in trouble as often as it gets her out of it. It makes her less of a stock fairy-tale heroine and more of a witty, flawed protagonist who’s as much her own obstacle as anything else.

The world itself is crammed with borrowed fairy-tale bits and offbeat inventions: enchanted mirrors with attitudes, spider-wolves, dragons, and multiple true love’s first kisses. It’s cozy fantasy with a dash of romance at heart, with medium stakes, constant humour, and a gleeful willingness to poke fun at the tropes it’s built on.

Melilot’s sharp tongue and sarcastic wit carry much of the story, though she’s surrounded by a lively cast that keeps the banter flowing. The humour is nearly nonstop, sometimes silly, sometimes sly, but usually landing well enough to keep the adventure moving at a brisk pace.

The huntsmen themselves are a load of fun. In the original Grimm story, they were little more than look-alikes in disguise, but here each one comes with a bizarre specialty. One can conjure bitter cold just by removing a hat, another can sprint at wild speeds with a fake leg attached, and yet another who can huff out gales through a single nostril. Some talents are genuinely useful, others hilariously trivial and weird (like the poor fellow whose gift is making windows a touch bigger), yet together they add to the book’s mix of absurdity and charm.

As narrator, Kristen Sieh does a great job capturing Melilot’s exasperated charm and the playful rhythm of the writing. Her delivery keeps the humour buoyant and makes the characters’ back-and-forth a pleasure to listen to. Production quality is clean and distraction-free.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story, even if it’s not something I’ll be rushing back to anytime soon. Maybe one day, once enough time has passed and the details have faded, I’d happily revisit the ride. For now, I’m glad to have gone along on the adventure once.

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