"Light fantasy novels are the perfect form of escapism. Sometimes you need a break from Planet Earth, but worlds that are grim and gritty aren't exactly appealing either. There's no official consensus on what qualifies as a light fantasy. Now, I love a rigorous definition as much as the next word nerd. The best approach I found to define light fantasy was to outline a constellation of features that bring lightness to the genre. Those features are humor, low stakes, whimsy, and happy endings. Any fantasy novel likely gets you at least one of these. So let's say a book needs to check at least two boxes to reach the diagnostic threshold.
It's useful to draw a distinction between light fantasy and low fantasy. The latter involves stories in which magic intrudes on a world that is otherwise recognizably ours. High fantasies are set in entirely magical worlds and realms. By that token, a light fantasy book could be either high or low."
