Never After

Rebecca Lickiss' Never After has such potential, but is bogged down by tedious characters and poor writing. The premise is promising: a hodge-podge of fairytales come together to create a fanciful, new story. Unfortunately, it never comes to fruition. The characters are unlikable and flat; the plot feels forced, and the entire tale is quite predictable, with no reward for the reader who sticks it out from “Once upon a time” to “happily ever after”.

The front cover proclaims: “Lickiss has a breezy, inventive style.” This is true if “breezy” is a synonym for “awkward”, and “inventive” is a euphemism for the atrocious sentence fragments that are cobbled together to make this book.

I can appreciate what Lickiss is trying to do, but the end result leaves a lot to be desired. There is little adventure, and no laughter. In a word: boring.