The Sisters Grimm
The Sisters Grimm is a series of mystery books by Michael Buckley. They're basically about one big old Fractured Fairy Tale, where the main protagonist, Sabrina Grimm, must solve crimes that happen in the small town of Ferryport Landing. Ferryport Landing is your everyday, run-of-the-mill town where nothing is what it seems and fairytale creatures, called Everafters, roam the streets. Sometimes, mass destruction follows them, and somehow, none of the humans notice the going-ons. Although, the forgetful dust does make humans forget what happened. The series is on-going. As of this writing, all the books, in order, are:
- The Fairytale Detectives
- The Unusual Suspects
- The Problem Child
- Once Upon a Crime
- Magic and Other Misdemeanors
- Tales from The Hood
- The Everafter War
- The Inside Story
- The Council of Mirrors
The main protagonist, Sabrina Grimm, and her eight-year-old sister, Daphne Grimm, are related to The Brothers Grimm, you know, the guys who made all of those fairy tales. To make a long story short, the girls' parents disappear mysteriously. The girls skip around foster homes, which ensures the fact that Sabrina will be The Snark Knight. They go to live with a grandmother they didn't know they had. Sabrina meets the bane of her existence in the form of Puck, a four-thousand-year-old fairy prince turned king. They have to defeat the Ultimate Evil by solving a series of mysteries that eventually lead up to a war with the Scarlet Hand, an evil group of Everafters.
Almost always, Puck is there to save the day, except it is Sabrina who solves most of the mysteries, by coincidence or logical reasoning.
Tropes used in The Sisters Grimm include:
- Academy of Adventure: In book two, Sabrina, Daphne, and Puck are enrolled in Ferryport Landing Elementary. The children were practically zombie slaves, the teachers were evil,the school's guidance councilor tried to kill everybody, and the principal turned out to be the Pied Piper and was controlling the human students.
- Action Girl: Nearly all the women in the book.
- Aerith and Bob: Baba Yaga and Jacob Grimm is just one example.
- The Alleged Car: The Grimm family's beat up old car is so loud, you cannot have a single conversation inside it.
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"Are We close to Faerie yet?" |
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- All Part of the Show: When the Jabberwocky breaks into the school.
- Animorphism: Puck, definitely Puck.
- Artifact of Death: The Vorpal Blade and any other magical item.
- Ax Crazy: Little Red Riding Hood, anybody?
- Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: Sabrina and Puck having that conversation after Oberon's funeral.
- Badass Family: The Grimms all fight crimes, sometimes against creatures that could possibly eat them. Definitely badass.
- Bad Future: Yes it was.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Daphne.
- Big Eater: Daphne and Puck are said to have bottomless stomachs. The only way to wake Daphne up is to tell her breakfast is ready.
- Bloodless Carnage: the future.
- Catch a Falling Star: Puck catches Sabrina at least a million times.
- Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: In The Queen Of Heart's house.
- Creepy Child: Red.
- Cool Old Lady: Granny Relda's been everywhere in the world, even to Mount Everest. If that isn't cool, I don't know what is.
- Cuffs Off, Rub Wrists: Tales From the Hood
- Curse Escape Clause:
- Sabrina turning into a frog. The spell could only be broken by a prince.
- Then there was the giant, robotic witch.
- Sabrina jumping onto a hot-air balloon, off the Empire State Building.
- Deadpan Snarker: It seems like almost everyone in the series is like this, but mostly Sabrina and Puck.
- Deflector Shields: Well, all the Everafters are stuck in Ferryport Landing and they cannot escape...
- Demonic Dummy: The marionettes.
- Department of Child Disservices: To the EXTREME.
- Did Not Do the Research: In Magic and Other Misdemeanors, Sabrina is said to have a brown belt in Karate and Daphne to have a yellow belt. However, Magic and Other Misdemeanors takes place not even a year after Once Upon A Crime. Therefor, Sabrina earning a brown belt in Karate is illogical because it is the last belt before black belt, and as there has been no reference to previous martial arts training and seeing how short the time gap is, there would not be enough time between Once Upon A Crime and Magic and Other Misdemeanors for Sabrina to earn her brown belt.
- Future Sabrina also says that T-rexes were not native to North America while explaining the time rifts. T-rex fossils are found only in North America.
- Disney Creatures of the Farce
- Damsel in Distress: Puck is constantly having to save Sabrina's butt.
- Drives Like Crazy: Granny Relda is not allowed, under the law, to be behind the wheels of a car. Sabrina actually goes onto the opposite lane while driving. She couldn't even reach the pedals, so Daphne had to push them. To be fair, she was trying to escape being eaten.
- Dysfunctional Family: Definitely the Grimms.
- Enemy Within: Mr. Canis, aka, The Big Bad Wolf.
- Everything's Better with Princesses
- Face Doodling: The title says all.
- The Fair Folk: Puck and his family.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk.
- Fantasy Gun Control: Apparently, nobody in Ferryport Landing has a gun. Knives, sure, but no guns.
- Faux Death: Veronica and Henry are under a sleeping spell.
- First Girl Wins: Well, Puck did meet Sabrina first, and they do end up together
- Forgets to Eat: Sabrina is known not to eat, but it's probably because she hates her grandmother's cooking.
- Gasshole: Ew, Puck! Gross!
- Growing Up Sucks: Puck even goes as far as saying that it's a disease, and it's all Sabrina's fault he is growing up. In his defense, it technically is her fault. He slowly begins aging so he and Sabrina always appear to be the same age.
- Hero with an F In Good: Defines Puck, and possibly Charming.
- Hot Mom: Veronica is said to be pretty hot. Even the prison guards were talking about her legs, much to Sabrina's chagrin.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Baba Yaga even decorates her front yard with human skulls.
- Improbable Antidote: Ah, so that is how you cure it. Gross!
- It's All About Me: Puck has this in massive amounts.
- The Jester
- Kiss of Life: Sabrina attempts CPR on Puck just when he wakes up, ergo, humiliation on both parts.
- Last-Name Basis: Unless Puck is calling Sabrina ugly.
- Lethal Chef: Well, in Sabrina's point-of-view, Granny Relda's cooking is definitely disgusting and inedible. Granny Relda does make some funky and exotic dishes.
- Lethal Joke Item: In Tales From the Hood, Sabrina and Puck get the weapon that's been mentioned a few times since the fourth book. It commands the wind, it can blow the insanity out of a person, destroy buildings with a single puff... and it's a kazoo.
- Killed Off for Real: Briar Rose, as well as Harry the mirror guardian.
- Knight in Sour Armor
- Knight in Shining Armor
- Little Dead Riding Hood: Yeah...
- Love At First Punch
- The Mad Hatter: The real Mad Hatter who was the judge in a court case.
- Magic Wand
- My Future Self and Me
- My Name Is Not Durwood: Puck and Mayor Charming have a problem with names.
- Near Misses: This happens to a lot of people a bunch of times.
- Never Mess with Granny: Granny Relda's middle name should be badass, especially when she runs into Sabrina's room, uttering a battle cry and carrying a sword, ready to fight off whatever was threatening her granddaughter.
- Never Grew Up: No Puck didn't.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: This happens to Puck when he attempts to save Sabrina from the Jabberwocky after it corners them at a cafe. He has his wings ripped off.
- Nightmare Face: One of the pictures of Little Red Riding Hood in the second book. See Nightmare Fuel below.
- Non-Human Sidekick
- Nothing but Skulls: Even Baba Yaga's fence is made of skulls.
- Offstage Villainy: Nobody knows who the Master is until the very end of the seventh book.
- Older Than They Look: Puck is a four-thousand years old in a twelve-year-old's body. He's way freaking older than he looks.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Maybe...
- Perfect Poison
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: In every book, Daphne manages to come up with a weird word in a language she calls "Daphne-ish"
- Person of Mass Destruction: Sabrina and Jacob both go power hungry in the third book, and they almost kill all the Everafters in the area.
- Politically-Incorrect Villain: The Master of the Scarlet Hand is very much politically incorrect.
- Portal to the Past
- Prince Charmless: Prince Charming, amusingly enough.
- Real Men Eat Meat: Puck did eat a horse for a bet.
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Most Everafters are literally more than seven hundred years old, and the ones that are not are more than a hundred.
- Screwy Squirrel: The worse prank Puck pulled on Sabrina was when he gathered a group of Pegasi and with diarrhea and they...went... on Sabrina.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: They have a lot of work to do.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Sabrina has to tell her mom and dad that Puck is not her boyfriend as they watch him pull a prank on Sabrina.
- Sibling Team: Sabrina and Daphne.
- Squick: Book two
- Talking Animal: There are a ton of them.
- Teach Me How to Fight: Daphne and Sabrina learn karate from Snow White.
- Testosterone Poisoning: Trying to act like the hero is what got Puck into major trouble with the Jabberwocky.
- Troubled but Cute: Puck does insist he's a bad guy and it is beneath him to help people.
- Weapon of Mass Destruction: The kazoo that controls the wind in Tales From the Hood. Sabrina and Puck had no idea what it was for until Sabrina blew it and it literally blew the bank away.
- Witch Species: The three witches.
- Wham! Episode: The end of almost all the books. They are, after all, mystery stories.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Shockingly of all, it comes from Puck.
- You Shall Not Pass: Briar