Genre: Fairytale Retelling

Review Round Up | Of Princes & Promises and Reckless Girls

Posted February 25, 2022 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! This series continues to baffle me a little bit. I enjoyed this book a similar amount to the first one. I was really hoping it was the characters from book one that prevented me from loving it but that turned out to not be the case here. If I were to read this without knowing Sandhya Menon wrote it, I’d be shocked to learn that she did. It just does not have the same feel as her other books, like the Dimple/Rishi universe. I think it’s mostly because she writes the characters as posh boarding school kids and her writing style feels weird as a result, like she’s trying hard to be fancy or something? In any case, this story followed Catarina and Rahul. She’s the pretty rich girl who rules the school and Rahul is the socially awkward kid whose family doesn’t even include him in public photos (his cousin stands in). The two of them had a ~moment~ after the school dance and Rahul is dying to capitalize on this. Catarina starts to “train him” to be a prince instead of a frog; she wants to make her cheater-ex-boyfriend jealous at some important events with a transformed Rahul on her arm. They acquire a magical […]

ARC Review: Of Curses and Kisses

Posted February 6, 2020 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I am a member of Sandhya’s Street Team because I support her and love her books. However, this book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review. When I first saw the announcement for this book and series, I was straight-up over the moon. It immediately became one of my top most anticipated reads. When I was accepted to join Sandhya’s street team and was given an egalley of this book, I was even MORE excited. I dove into it pretty quickly. Unfortunately I didn’t FINISH it just as quickly, but I’ll get into that later. As you can see from this post, I was so effing excited: Like… excuse my French but are you fucking kidding me? I need this series more than I need the air I breathe. Everything about this is perfect and has me written all over it. The author, the boarding school setting, the fairytale retellings, the possible fake dating/hate-to-love trope… Good lord. I’ve been turning a corner on Royal-related books lately and this one will 100% be perfect for me. I just know it. I was in a bit of a slump in September 2019 when I started reading this (woof) and unfortunately that hindered my interest in it. I put it aside for maybe a week or two after starting because I had a few other required reads to sneak in between. When I picked it back up in October, I wasn’t quite as excited to keep reading. The premise […]

Review Round Up | Disenchanted, The Diviners, and Lair of Dreams

Posted September 11, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I’d been meaning to work on the Tyme series for a while, after really enjoying GROUNDED. I like fairytale retellings so much and knew one or two of these books should end up on my Retellings Challenge TBR! This story followed Ella (Cinderella) as she grew close to Prince Dash Charming. They were put together on a school project and Ella shows him how important it is that local businesses use fair labor practices. This sounds a bit weird or boring for a middle grade book, I’m sure, but it was quite powerful! Meanwhile, our third POV is Serge – a fairy godfather tasked with helping children like Ella – who is trying to find his way forward. He doesn’t like the “company” he works for and wants to make his own impact somehow, helping kids who NEED help instead of those whose families are rich enough to pay for their magic. I love how this series features a lot of elements from the original tales/stories but offers a completely fresh take in general. I also love how Megan Morrison manages to take something like fair labor practices and turn it into an engaging book for young readers. It was wonderful to see Dash’s world turned upside […]

Review Round Up | A Curse So Dark and Lonely, Well Met, and We Came Here to Forget

Posted August 26, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! ARC August Edition As always with fantasy books, I kind of waited forever to read my review copy of this book. I was hoping to mix in the audiobook but I couldn’t track it down in my usual places, so I just broke up my reading and charged through. I also made sure it was both my August book club selection AND a pick for my Disney-a-thon TBR, so I would be guaranteed to have read it. I’m not 100% sure if this book is classified as a true portal fantasy, but I loved that it featured both “our world” and another fantasy world – Emberfall. It was fun to learn about that world and those who inhabit it (Rhen, Grey, etc.). The curse and Beauty and the Beast elements were really well done and more unique than the traditional Stockholm Syndrome-esque story or other retellings. I appreciated that a lot. Harper was kind of a badass main character and it was cool to read about a fantasy heroine with cerebral palsy. Like the author’s note said, she wasn’t defined by it throughout the story but there were clear mentions about how it affected her daily life. I do wish I read this all in […]

Review Round Up | The Goose Girl, The Cottingley Secret, and Everything Must Go

Posted April 12, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! When planning out my books for the retellings challenge this year, I knew I needed to attempt THE GOOSE GIRL. This is a classic fantasy novel that everyone seems to love. It reminded me a bit of ELLA ENCHANTED or STARDUST when it got started, with the princess/girl heading out on some kind of adventure/quest/etc. It honestly took me a little while to get into this and see what all the fuss was about, but it was worth it. I should also mention that I started with the audiobook, which has a full cast (!!) and was pretty adorable as a result. The latter half of the book was pretty fantastic, honestly. I’m glad I wasn’t fully aware of the original Brothers Grimm story, or else I wouldn’t have gasped as much as I did LOL. I didn’t see certain things coming and was honestly on the edge of my seat, deciding to finish the book off as an ebook instead of an audiobook. Ani was a great character to watch grow up and learn about life outside of being a princess. Her experience as a goose girl definitely shaped her into a more well-rounded person. I loved the bit of romance, even though it definitely wasn’t […]

ARC Review: The Princess and the Fangirl

Posted March 21, 2019 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Initial Excitement & Summary I adored GEEKERELLA and was SO excited to see a companion sequel. I already need there to be a million books in this series. The first book was basically a love letter to being a fan, attending cons, and geek culture as a whole. I’m not QUITE as into fandom things (for anything really) as many of my friends, but I totally get it. While the first book was a Cinderella retelling, this was a Princess and the Pauper retelling – the classic situation where two people look like each other and switch lives for a few days. In this case, the actor who plays Princess Amara in Starfield (Jess) switches place with Imogen (a Starfield fan and leader of the “Save Amara” movement). The two switch lives so Jess can track down who leaked the new Starfield script. Storytelling & Characters Just like the first book, this was filled with geeky references that I loved. (Sometimes it feels like a little too much, but not bad! – I liked that Jess was not really a geeky character so the references were only during one of the POVs.) The Princess and the Pauper trope was really well done and super fun to follow in a con setting. I enjoyed both Jess and Imogen as main characters. Jess was hard to get used to in the beginning because she didn’t like Starfield; it was off-putting to hear her grouchy inner monologue. This definitely changed throughout the book […]

ARC Review: Geekerella

Posted March 29, 2017 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

Initial Excitement I heard a bit of buzz about this one early on from some bloggers, so I immediately requested it… then started it that same night! I’m not AS fandom-y as a lot of my friends (minus a couple of things) but I had a feeling this book would resonate with me anyways. I’ve only been to one Comic Con but love the feel of cons. I love that people can be themselves and geek out without being judged. I’m also a big sucker for Cinderella retellings! Quick Summary Elle is in the classic Cinderella situation – her stepmom is terrible and her stepsisters are just as bad, her dad (and much earlier, mom) passed away, and she’s constantly forced to do things around the house. She and her dad bonded like crazy over Starfield, a sci-fi TV show, and she has a popular-ish blog about the series. There’s a new movie reboot coming out and she’s not very happy with the main character’s casting, but that doesn’t stop her from entering a cosplay contest at ExcelsiCon (a con that her dad created). There were countless connections between Elle and the lead actor in the Starfield movie, Darien, without them actually knowing each other. LOTS OF CUTE THINGS HAPPEN. Storytelling, Setting, and Feels I loved how fandom-centric this book was. I haven’t read many “geek” books like this but my sister has (you bet your ass I preordered this for my sister). I have to say, it covered pretty much […]

ARC Review: Heartless

Posted November 28, 2016 / Book Reviews / 9 Comments

Initial Excitement I think it’s pretty obvious why I was excited for this one! I adored the Lunar Chronicles series by Meyer and was SO ready to see how she would work in a different world! I love that she is staying with retellings, because clearly she’s great at them, but I am definitely intrigued to see where she heads from here. Will she keep them going?! Anyways, I have been waiting for an Alice in Wonderland retelling that I’d love. I had super mixed feelings about the last one I read but I kind of loved that world. (I need to reread one other Alice retelling series again because I LOVED it back in the day.) So, in any case, you could say I was pumped for this book. I saw lots of people who were excited because of Marissa Meyer, but nervous because they don’t enjoy Alice retellings as much. Quick Summary Cath is just a normal girl in Wonderland when the King of Hearts sets his sights on her for marriage. She quickly determines she isn’t interested him and instead wants to open a bakery with her best friend/maid Mary Ann. She also (just as quickly) falls for the court joker, Jest. They have a bit of a secret love affair while the king continues to court her. She has to find a way to break it off with the king and make her ~dreams come true~ instead. BUT we all know how the Queen of Hearts turns out, right? Storytelling, Setting, and […]

Review: Cruel Beauty

Posted October 13, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

Initial Excitement I was really intrigued by this book when it was first released, but I hesitated on reading it for a while. Cristina and I chose Crimson Bound by the same author for one Book Buddies month but I ended up DNFing it (so we chose another book). That made me nervous for this story. However, it was randomly picked by my book club using our new book selection method and I was ready for the push to read it finally. I was cautiously optimistic because I know a lot of people loved this one compared to Crimson Bound or really any others by Hodge. Summary in a Second Nyx has been set to marry the Gentle Lord, Ignifex, since she was a baby. Her father made a selfish deal with him and Nyx’s plan is to kill him to set her people free. (It’s kind of a long, complicated story, so I’ll let you investigate that on your own.) It’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling so there are definitely similar elements woven through – the castle, being kind of a prisoner, the non-human man thingy keeping you hostage, etc. Storytelling & Setting I have to say, I’ve never read a story quite like this one. The world was so vast and explored piece by piece. The writing was gorgeous and somehow way more interesting than Crimson Bound‘s prose. The plot itself was unveiled slowly as Nyx uncovered new secrets and opened hidden doors throughout the castle. She found herself falling for a […]

Mini Novella Reviews: Fairest and Stars Above

Posted March 2, 2016 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

I don’t have a lot to say about this one overall. I liked it and am glad it exists, because Levana’s point of view is fucking crazy, but it wasn’t at the same level of the rest of the books. Obviously the entire series is ridiculously epic and twisty and turny. This book was really just a summary of Levana’s life before Cinder technically takes place. I think this would make more sense as a 0.5 instead of 3.5, but what are ya gonna do? My Goodreads review successfully sums up my feelings on this book: I’ve been looking forward to this epilogue foreeeeever. Oh yeah, and the rest of the novellas in there 😉 I actually hadn’t read any of the existing novellas for this series yet, so the whole book was new to me. It was an absolutely great way to wrap up the series. Here are some very mini reviews on each novella included: The Keeper: I loved seeing Michelle and Scarlet’s relationship develop! Getting a little background about how everyone came together pre-Cinder was awesome. And I loved seeing her become Cinder (and why that name!) Glitches: I’m pretty sure this one was previously released, but I’m reading all of these novellas for the first time! It was heartwarming to see how Garan and Peony really did care for her, unlike the rest of them. Made me sad/happy. Also IKO! The Queen’s Army: Really interesting (and terrible) to learn about how the queen acquired her army. I felt […]