The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey

Published May 1, 2010.

In the land of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, if you can’t carry out your legendary role, life is no fairy tale...

Elena Klovis was supposed to be her kingdom’s Cinderella— until fate left her with a completely inappropriate prince!

So she set out to make a new life for herself. But breaking with “The Tradition” was no easy matter—until she got a little help from her own fairy godmother. Who promptly offered Elena a most unexpected job...

Now, instead of sleeping in the chimney, she has to deal with arrogant, stuffed-shirt princes who keep trying to rise above their place in the tale. And there’s one in particular who needs to be dealt with...

Sometimes a fairy godmother’s work is never done... (netgalley.com)

DNF. It's a really intriguing concept and the blurb really roped me in but I wasn't taken by the writing at all. It was very slow-going and after maybe 50 pages I started to procrastinate reading. I didn't even give this one to my unwritten rule of the halfway mark before abandoning. Why? Because it was close to 500 pages, making the halfway mark pretty much an entire book unto itself. So I left the ship at 100 pages and I felt it was a slog just to get to there.

I liked the world it was building and the characters in it. Elena was a great character and I really felt for her when she was abandoned and the strength she held in the face of all of that. I liked how the fairy godmother concept was twisted and instead of getting the prince, Elena gets the wand. It's all really neat.

But from the beginning I had a feeling it was going to be hard to get through just from the writing style. And I was right. It just wasn't for me. I don't have the patience to slog through something so slow moving. If you do, then by all means I'd recommend it. I liked what I read so far but not enough to keep it up. It would have taken me a month to finish it and I just don't have that kind of time. Not with how large my TBR pile is. Maybe I'll try picking it up again in the future.

Just know it's very long and very slow but if you stick it out, I think it'll end up being a great world and a great story. I just didn't have the patience to wait around and find out.