Oh, Xanth, how I liked you when I was 10. Of course (not to show my age), that was early on in the series, as well. So why, you may ask, did I read this book? It's a long story, but I was told by someone in my book group that they'd read it and it was a novel about a skeevy old man and a young girl and that it had made them never want to read anything by the author again. I couldn't imagine it, so I went ahead and read it. And, okay, the title is a bit weird, but it's not that at all. It's classic over-punned Xanth at its wackiest.
And while there are some adult-oriented jokes and much talk of undergarments, there's nothing particularly shocking or horrible... except, perhaps, some of the puns. Those they could stand to lose. At least half of them. Three quarters, even. I realized they are the hallmarks of the Xanth universe, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Though without any it'd be another boring, run-of-the-mill wacky fantasy quest novel. So it's a balancing act, and it seems to, in this novel, have all the grace of a humpbacked whale on roller skates, competing in a roller derby.
Bottom line is it's fantasy quest fluff wrapped in far too much that tries far too hard to be clever and ends up being a bit of a slog. Unless you are 10, I'd seriously suggest his other series, the Incarnation of Immortality. Or chuck the whole lot in and read Pratchett's Discworld series.
