The novel takes place in the magical land of Ingary, "where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist." Because such impossibilities are presented as the norm —that is, the conventions of countless fairy tales are taken as the book's "reality"—the reader is led to expect certain things to happen in certain ways, just as they do in the fairy tales: The stepmother will inevitably be wicked, the stepsisters ugly, the good wizard victorious. Indeed, the expectations set up by the story's setting are so strong that even the characters themselves share them, as Sophie's thoughts and actions reveal. But events—as in real life itself—have a way of not meeting one's expectations of them; or, if they do, they do so in completely unanticipated and humorous ways, as happens in this novel, which is as brilliant and mercurial...