'I Hate Fairyland Volume 2: Fluff My Life' – Skottie Young (Image Comics)

It's funny how time can get away from you, isn't it? One minute, it's January and I've just posted my review for Volume One of 'I Hate Fairyland'. The next thing, it's September and I'm just getting round to reading Volume Two. Seriously, I feel like I blinked and nine months just happened which is just plain weird as most of that has been Lockdown and that just dragged... Anyway...

What's also funny, and says a lot about my relationship with this series, is that just like in January, it's the start of a crappy week (trying to squeeze five days of work into two days before I go on leave) and my first thought was to pick up 'Fluff My Life' and get a few laughs back into the day. And it worked, of course it worked. There's nothing new here but to be honest, I was giggling too much to really care..

All hail Gertrude, the new Queen of Fairyland. After thirty years of wreaking havoc across this magical world to find her way back home, she must now overcome her biggest challenge yet... ruling the place she hates most. Join Gert as she continues her never-ending quest to get the FLUFF out of Fairyland.

Once again, the challenge is to write something new about a sequel volume that doesn't really do anything new. It doesn't need to but you can get the position that I'm in here. Go easy on me and lets see where we end up.

Same Gertrude, same Fairyland and the same path of indiscriminate cartoon violence that everyone (reader and cast) gets to walk; isn't it a little boring by now? The answer should be yes but thankfully for us, it's a resounding 'NO!' as Volume Two is just as much fun as it's predecessor. Most of this is down to Gertrude and her habit of just throwing herself into whatever's in her path with all the attitude (and explosions) that a forty year old woman, trapped in the body of her six year old self, can manage. That makes for a lot of attitude by the way and this makes what should be a fairly simple trip through Fairyland something else entirely. And it's all illustrated with that savage cuteness that Skottie Young is known for. I don't have a lot to add as far as the artwork goes, there are no big changes but it still does the job superbly. That's all you can say really.

Back to the story though and after a brief interlude (where we get to see Gertrude's take on ruling Fairyland, about what you'd expect), its back to the main thrust of the plot, getting Gertrude back home. And it all goes down exactly the same as it did in the last book but you can't find it in you to get annoyed at this because Gertrude is so manic and wide eyed at everything (just before she kills it), that feeling overflows into the rest of the story and it is so easy to just jump on board and go with the flow. Seriously, the main reason this post has come so late in the day is that I've spent most of my time reading, giggling and then reading some more (and working, erm... of course)

There are new obstacles for Gertrude to face (and that's what really keeps the story fresh) but she handles them in the same old ways (and that's what will make you laugh out loud as you're waiting to collect your daughter from school, which I may have done...*)

A lot of this, of course, is dependant on your sense of humour. If the thought of any of the above has made you chuckle a little bit then you'll have as much fun with Volume Two as I'm assuming you already did with Volume One. If didn't though, don't pick this book up). This book is written very much for those who have a certain sense of humour, it's key in fact, so bear that in mind.

'Fluff My Life' treads familiar ground but it's still early days, at this point, for the series and Gertrude's 'larger than life' approach keeps things ticking along nicely. It's a book that really dug me out of a hole today and I'm very grateful for that. There's a lot to recommend 'Fluff My Life', read 'Madly Ever After' first and then get into it, you'll be glad you did :o)

* By 'may', I mean that I totally did. Luckily the teachers know who I am...