Instruct: Classify the given Amazon review as either positive or negative.
Query: clever and witty, but too long

I started this book with enthusiasm, and had to force myself to finish it. The prose is very good, the characters fully developed, and the situations range from entertaining to outright funny, but...First, it's too specific in genre. You really have to have read a lot of fairy tales to understand many of the references, but if you do understand them, the direction of the plot eventually gets obvious. I was hoping from a departure from the norm, but this isn't it.Second, it's just too long. All the tension is in the first two thirds of the book and the last third is a long winding down.Still, a great first effort. Buy it used, there are sure to be 100s of copies around soon.