William Goldman - The Princess Bride

What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be...well...a lot less than the man of her dreams?

As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the "S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.

Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.

What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.

In short, it's about everything

Language

"Damn" and "shit" are used a few times during William's story (you'll figure it out if you read it)

Violence

Nothing worth mentioning

Sexual Content

As you have, no doubt, concluded from the summary, there is "a little sex" Nothing is described in detail, but in short, Buttercup complains that 'they've only kissed' and then proceeds to tell Westley to lay down on a blanket. Then Goldman says "The obligatory nine months sped by" so we're left with little doubts as to what happened.

Buttercup has nightmares about a baby that tells her horrible things while she tries to nurse it at 'her perfect breast' when she's about to kill herself, Westley says "There's a shortage of perfect breasts in this world, leave yours alone."

This is not the story you remember from the movie. Well, kind of. It is the movie, up to a certain point. But it's interspersed with a completely uninteresting and unrealistic story about how he 'edited' the story. Goldman made this up! S. Morgenstern never existed, just btw. If you do read it, stop where the movie stopped; with them galloping away. It's much better that way. The movie is very close to the book, and the book is funny, but the last 50 pages or so are confusing, uneccessary and laden with suggestive content. PG-13 for innuendo.   

I would recommend reading just the Buttercup story, up to the point where the movie ended. I didn't even read the Goldman parts.