The prologue and first chapter were great, laying out a kingdom lost and a princess hidden in a fairytale book (Cinderella). Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. Elements of the fairy tale were thrown down pellmell amid one note characters. The villains are pure evil. The love interest is smitten from the start and perfectly brave, noble, and kind. The plot involved into a fairly straightforward forward rebellion of common good vs royal evil.
As for the series arc about Harmony living the fairytale, I don’t get it. Did the events of this book happen within the book? Did the events happen in the “real” magical world in which the princess was born? What kind of silly prophecy requires the characters to live through three books? The next book takes the characters into the Peter Pan tale, and the last is Wizard of Oz. Frankly, it feels like the author wrote the elements of each story on note cards, threw them in the air, and just riffed on a tale as she picked up each card.
This was YA, with a rare F bomb and no sex, but with faceless people getting strung up or assaulted off screen. There’s a recurring theme of women getting abused sexually. It was occasionally interesting and fun, especially with falcon Fetch and Molly, Harmony’s flawed but feisty bestie. It just didn’t have enough fantastical magic, creatures, or personalities to really invest me. Plus, trying to make sense of the series premise of living within a book made my head hurt.