I'm a well read grad student who's bluntly honest about all things, although I try to be most honest about myself.
And I still need the humor.
This one didn't work quite as well for me, but I still enjoyed it very much. I think it's partly because the first one was realistic, optimistic, but things that aren't out of the realm of possibility.
This felt like pure fantasy, which took out some of the satirical element. (To me the sociological/satirical element was that a lot of the things in the original could, and even arguably should, happen just out of consideration for the woman who's often left to fend for herself. This totally went away from that concept. The first felt funny because it was based on truth, whereas this felt more... whimsical.)
Anyway, there's still a lot of mirth to be found in this, so I'm only knocking off one star because I didn't think it held up to the first book.