This Isn’t What It Said It Was | A review of One Last Shot by Betty Cayouette

From the moment Emerson and Theo met as teenagers, they were inseparable. But just when they finally expressed their feelings to one another, they were torn apart.

Now, supermodel Emerson is nearing her twenty-eighth birthday, and she’s tired of looking for love in all the wrong places. When the calendar reminder for the marriage pact she and Theo made as teens goes off on her phone, she realizes this is it―her chance to rekindle the only romance that ever really made sense. Emerson convinces her grumpy agent to book her as the face of the fashion campaign that Theo, now a fashion photographer, is shooting. The good the campaign is being shot in ridiculously romantic Cinque Terre, Italy. The bad news? Theo might not be as happy to see her as she’d hoped.

The two embark on a four-day campaign that tests not only their feelings, but their ability to keep their hands off one another. But as roadblock after roadblock keeps them apart, Emerson starts to will this photoshoot be the key to getting one last shot at love, or will it be a final goodbye?

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for this review. All thoughts on One Last Shot are my own.

Did Not Finish at 6% (21 pages)

I want you to go ahead and read that book description again. Particularly the line “Theo might not be as happy to see her as she’d hoped.” Maybe even read it a third time. Because that is a complete and utter lie.

It didn’t take me long to realize that this book’s description promised something it wasn’t going to fulfill. Because as our two main characters get the notification on their phones that they made a pact to get married on their 28th birthdays, they also both decide to reach out and find the other after a ten year separation.

Go ahead and read that again too, while we’re at it. They BOTH reach out. The second they get the notification.

Now, its one thing for me to misunderstand a book’s description and realize I’ve made a mistake once I hop into it. I’ve done it before, and I’m sure the possibility to do it again is in my future. But if I can misunderstand a book’s intentions and then go back and find the exact line in the book’s description that states very clearly the same thought process I had?

I went into this book with the understanding that Theo didn’t want to see Emerson again, only to immediately be smacked in the face with his very obvious want to reconnect with her. Paired alongside a very stilted writing style and two characters who were weirdly obsessed with each other, I didn’t even want to give this book a chance to wow me despite its lies.

What A Disaster! A Flower Farm! | A Review Of Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings

Winning the lottery has ruined Opal Devlin’s’s life. After quitting her dead-end job where she’d earned minimum wage and even less respect, she’s bombarded by people knocking at her door for a handout the second they found out her bank account was overflowing with cash. And Opal can’t seem to stop saying yes.

With her tender heart thoroughly abused, Opal decides to protect herself by any means necessary, which to her translates to putting almost all her new money to buying a failing flower farm in Asheville, North Carolina to let the flowers live out their plant destiny while she uses the cabin on the property to start her painting business.

But her plans for isolation and self-preservation go hopelessly awry when an angry (albeit gorgeous) Pepper Smith is waiting for her at her new farm. Pepper states she’s the rightful owner of Thistle and Bloom Farms, and isn’t moving out. The unlikely pair strike up an agreement of co-habitation, and butt-heads at every turn. Can these opposites both live out their dreams and plant roots? Or will their combustible arguing (and growing attraction) burn the whole place down?

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for this review. All thoughts on Late Bloomer are my own.

Did Not Finish at page 87 (26%)

After reading and absolutely loving Mazey Eddings’ previous book, Tilly In Technicolor, I was excited to get into Late Bloomer and get more of this author’s writing!

Unfortunately, Late Bloomer just didn’t end up being for me.

My first clue that this book wouldn’t be for me came in the form of the characters themselves and their viewpoints on life. Our main character, Opal, wins the lottery and is immediately ambushed by a long list of people coming out of the woodwork to ask her for money. The love interest, Pepper, has recently had to deal with her grandma’s death and soon learns that her beloved flower farm has been sold right out from under her. Both of these characters are in rather low points in their lives and think life is terrible, making for a depressing opening to this book that I honestly wasn’t excited to read.

From this opening, however, a lot of this book seems to balance on a reader’s suspension of disbelief in order to tell it’s story. When Opal and Pepper realize what has happened, the two decide they’re just… going to live together. In the same house. Until Pepper can pay back what Opal paid for the farm. And while I think every genre deserves a certain level of suspension of disbelief in order to make it work, I don’t think contemporary romance can survive on quite this much willful ignorance.

Late Bloomer also relies on insta lust in order to get its characters together. Within pages of Opal and Pepper meeting each other, we’re getting descriptions of their attraction to each other, with longing looks and distractions as one is a little too focused on the others’ body. These two have barely had a conversation, yet they’re already holding themselves back from wanting to sleep with the other? Why is Pepper looking at Opal in that kinda way as Opal is saying “I promise I’m not a serial killer lol”??

I ended up not enjoying myself with the beginning of this book, but stuck with it until I was a quarter of the way through before deciding to say enough was enough and DNFed it.

The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist by Sophie Gonzales review

Ivy Winslow has the house to herself for a week while her parents are away. She’s planning to use this newfound freedom to binge-watch her favorite fantasy TV show, H-MAD, and hang out with her best friend, Henry. She’ll also have to avoid her former best friend-turned enemy (and neighbor), Mack. But things quickly go awry when Ivy wakes up to find Weston, the gorgeous, very fictional main character of H-MAD in her bedroom, claiming to be her soul mate.

Ivy realizes that her fanfic writing has somehow brought Weston as she’s imagined him to life. But it turns out that the tropes she swoons over in her stories are slightly less romantic in reality, and her not-so-fictional crush is causing some real-world problems. To figure out why Weston is here and what to do with him, Ivy decides to team up with Henry and (against her better judgment) Mack. But with Mack back in her life, Ivy starts to wonder if Weston, her “perfect guy”, is the one who’s truly perfect for her . . . or if that was someone else all along.

Did Not Finish at 20%

I’ll be completely truthful with you guys: this book was a mistake for me to pick up.

You know when you think you have an idea of how a book is going to go, so you pick it up, only to realize that it is actually going a different way that should have been obvious from the description? That was The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist for me.

I found the idea of a girl who writes fanfiction and ends up having her favorite character come to life to be an interesting concept. I’m sure a lot of people out there wish they could interact with the characters from their favorite piece of media, and as someone constantly thinking about the world of their favorite book, I thought this would be a fun book to pick up!

And there was a lot I was intrigued by in this book.

For one, while I didn’t get far enough to understand the relationship between Ivy and her ex-best friend, Mack, I was interested in seeing how their relationship changed from being so close (to the point that Ivy used to have a crush on Mack) to being enemies.

I was also really enjoying the way this book kept jumping between the past and present to show their relationship. As I made my way through the book, the details of what happened between Ivy and Mack in their past were slowly revealed to me, interspersed with scenes of Ivy struggling to figure out what to do with her very fictional favorite character, Weston.

But beyond that, I couldn’t find much else to enjoy in this book.

For one, I did not like Weston. At all. To be fair on the book, the whole point is that the idea of Weston should be appealing to Ivy, but the actual man himself shouldn’t. We’re not really supposed to like Weston. But when we’re confronted by a man who is extremely clingy, aggressive, and possessive of Ivy and are stuck with a main character who is enamored by his presence alone, it becomes a little difficult to read about.

For two, the writing in this book, especially when about Weston and the things he says… pained me. That might be a plus to Sophie Gonzales’ writing, considering how the version of Weston in this book is based off of Ivy’s immature writing style, but the purple prose? At 20% of the way through the book, he says (and I quote) “As long as I’m with you, I could sleep on a bed of molten coals beneath a blanket of thorns, and I’d cry out not in pain, but in ecstasy.”

I can’t. I had to put the book down and never pick it up again from that line alone.

Also? This is me being very open and honest with you guys in a way that’s embarrassing, but I… thought Mack was a guy. Before I started actually reading this book, based off of the cover alone, I thought Mack was the blond boy on the cover.

That’s Ivy. On the cover. Our main character. Mack is a girl, and this is a SAPPHIC ROMANCE NOVEL.

But that just goes to show how incredibly wrong my assumptions of this book were before I picked it up.

This one’s my fault. I’m sorry.

Not Your Crush’s Cauldron (Supernatural Singles #3) by April Asher review

Olive Maxwell much prefers teaching about the supernatural world to taking part in it and leaves the magical shenanigans to her two sisters―the Prima-Apparent and Bounty Hunter-In-Training. But after assigning her college students a project designed to nudge them outside their comfort zones, Olive realizes that she’s never once stepped a toe over her own…and it’s about time that changed. Her first trip into the unknown? Moving in with her long-time crush―and friend…tattooed, motorcycle-riding, and pleasantly pierced, Baxter Donovan.

Bax Donovan, Guardian Angel not-so-extraordinaire, has acquired so many black marks on his record it looked like a scantron sheet. He’s given one last chance to keep his Guardian wings intact, a high-profile Assignment he knows all too well. Olive is usually as low-risk as it got. Hell, she wrote the safety manual. But something landed her on the Guardian Affairs radar and his guess was it had something to do with the heart-pounding stunts she’s determined to check off her Dare I Docket list.

Keeping Olive out of trouble is about to be his toughest assignment yet, and not because he’s forced to shake the dust off his feathers and embrace his inner aerialist. He’s at real risk of shattering the only Guardian Angel Code of Conduct Rule he’s yet to Don’t fall in love with your Assignment. And he isn’t so sure that’s a bad thing.

If love didn’t play by the rules, why should they?

Not Your Crush’s Cauldron gets published February 13th, 2024!

DID NOT FINISH at page 75 (20%)

Is it me? Am I the problem?

Having read the first two books in the Supernatural Singles series, I was sure Not Your Crush’s Cauldron was going to be an easily enjoyed book. Returning to this world was sure to be fun, and I had already expressed my interest in reading Olive’s story!

Unfortunately, I started having problems with this book from the very first page.

Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe my tastes have shifted within the last few years and I just no longer enjoy these types of books. Because Not Your Crush’s Cauldron immediately opened up to the same “hilarious”, horny writing I was kind of expecting from this series… and I wasn’t here for it.

There’s something about friends to lovers that just makes me think that immediately being attracted to each other and so obviously wanting to have sex with the other person doesn’t fit the vibes of the story we’re trying to tell here. Despite the fact that Olive and Bax have been background characters in the first two books and we therefore vaguely know what to expect from them, the book immediately opening with Olive receiving a dildo from her sister and Bax needing to leave the room before she notices that he has a boner was not making me want to continue reading.

I was also confused by the humor in this book. Maybe I’m forgetting the writing style of the first two books, but the writing in this book carried that cringy, “boomer”-esque humor that felt like it would fit in better in a Facebook photo post with a Minion in the background. At one point, Olive reveals to her friends(/family) that she’s anxious about an important presentation coming up, to which everyone decides the best remedy is to crank up the music (in the middle of a bar) and dance to Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off.

We might as well slap a medication’s name over this scene and list possible side effects, because it felt exactly like one of those commercials.

The last thing that bothered me in this book was the setup to the plot/Olive’s personal conflict. Olive works as a teacher in a magical college, where she’s getting bullied by her fellow teachers for being boring and never stepping out of her comfort zone. While this is the push she needs to begin experimenting and finding new joy in her life, I’m also questioning everyone’s maturity and age in this book. We’re college-level teachers, and yet we’re still forming cliques and bullying our peers? Just a few chapters ago, we were describing a dildo in the shape of a tentacle, and now we’re falling back on overused teenage plots our characters should be past by this point in their lives?

I tried to stay with this book until the conflict was fully introduced and the beginning was past us, but at 75 pages in, I got to the beginning of a new chapter and realized I could not sit through another word of this book.

Love Naturally by Sophie Sullivan review

Presley Ayers is not the woman you bring on a camping trip. An accomplished concierge at an exclusive hotel in Great Falls, MI, she knows more about the top ten places for champagne and caviar than she does about the best hiking boots to go stomping around near Lake Michigan. But when she surprises her boyfriend of eight months with a vacation to the Get Lost Lodge and he dumps her instead, Presley decides to rough it solo and take the trip herself.

When Beckett Keller helps the gorgeous woman off the rickety boat and onto Lodge territory, it’s clear she’s made a mistake. She doesn’t like hiking, fishing, or nature in general, so why did she go on this trip?―but he’s got other things on his mind. A crumbling lodge, and his own plans and dreams that are forever deferred―so he doesn’t have time for Ms. Fish-Out-of-Water. But neither Beckett or Presley can help that inexplicable draw they feel towards each other. He’s all rough stubble and plaid shirts, while she’s all high heels and brand-name athleisurewear.

But you know what they say about opposites.

Love, Naturally gets published January 16th, 2024!

Did Not Finish at 60% (page 218)

I was actually really excited to see our main character, Presley, get her life changed by this book at the beginning.

Love, Naturally opens with Presley surprising her boyfriend with a ten day trip to a fishing lodge for his birthday. She doesn’t like fishing (or nature), but she knows he really does, and she thinks he’ll really love it.

But then he says their relationship isn’t as serious as she thinks it is and asks to bring a friend instead of her, so she walks out and takes the trip for herself.

Unfortunately, after this first scene, the rest of this book took a nosedive for me.

Presley meets a guy, Beckett, and the two instantly fall in love with each other. I don’t mind a bit of instant attraction (sometimes people are hot, and I respect that), but this was seriously insta-love. When you’re bending over backwards to accommodate someone you’ve barely met? When you’ve only known each other for a couple days, but you’re already wondering how you’ll be able to live without them when this trip is over?

Yikes.

I actually ended up having a few days where I was too busy to read, and when I came back to this book, I read about 5-10 more pages before deciding I couldn’t possibly read a single word more. The thought of finishing this book had me stressed, so I decided to DNF it instead.

Cheesesteak Cheater | With Or Without You by Eric Smith

All’s fair in love and (food truck) war.

Everyone knows Jordan Plazas and Cindy Ortiz hate each other.

According to many viral videos of their public shouting matches, the Plazas and Ortiz families have a well-known food truck rivalry. Jordan and Cindy have spent all of high school making cheesesteaks and slinging insults at each other across their shared Philadelphia street.

But the truth? They’re in love, and it’s all just an act for the tourists.

When the fake feud lands them a reality tv show pilot, Jordan and Cindy find themselves having to lie on a much bigger scale. Trapped between pursuing their dreams or their love, can they find a way to have their cheesesteak and eat it too?

With Or Without You gets published November 7th, 2023!

Did Not Finish – 53% (150 pages)

While on my hunt to find the perfect rival chef romance, I stumbled upon With Or Without You by Eric Smith. Convinced solely from the cover that this book must be the book of my dreams, I requested an ARC, desperate to read Jordan and Cindy’s story.

It wasn’t as good as I hoped.

With Or Without You tells the story of two rival cheesesteak trucks and the teen owners who are in love behind the scenes. I thought the idea of this Romeo-and-Juliet-esque story would make for an interesting plot, expecting to see conflict come up time and time again while the characters hid their romance from the world, but I instead found a story where I was practically begging for these two to break up.

Let’s start with a little bit of an introduction to our characters. Jordan is a boy with dreams to travel the country in his food truck, setting up shop wherever he pleases to sell his cheesesteaks with his girlfriend, Cindy. He’s weirdly possessive about the way people enjoy their food, making for a character I wasn’t sure I could cheer on as he demands only the classics, with no substitutions and only the highest quality ingredients.

On the other hand, Cindy doesn’t care too much about food or policing the way people eat. Her hobbies mainly include watching reality TV and talking on the podcast she does with her best friends, and her biggest dream is to go to college in her hometown, returning to the friends she recently moved away from.

The red flags were already popping up in this story simply from the characters’ introductions, but I continued on.

As we get further into this story, we learn that the fake feud Jordan and Cindy put on in front of their cheesesteak customers is popular enough that the two get scouted for their own reality TV show. In this TV show, they have to do many things they don’t want to do (such as show personal, deep, emotional wounds for “drama” and compete in a cooking competition they don’t even want to join), all to appear in a show they don’t even particularly want to be a part of.

As I said, I really wasn’t a fan of the relationship between Jordan and Cindy, nor how they didn’t communicate their plans and wishes with each other. Throughout most of the book, I was questioning why these two were even together, and whether or not it was better for them to break up by the end.

But the event that ultimately got me to decide not to finish this book appeared about 53% of the way through (or 150 pages).

You see, there’s this boy. An assistant working on the TV show who is interested in Cindy. She thinks he’s cute, which is all fine and dandy to me so long as you’re just looking.

But then he asks “is there… a someone?” As in, are you dating anyone?

And Cindy responds “no,” fully aware that she is dating Jordan. Has been dating Jordan since before the book started. And has absolutely no reason to be lying to this new boy.

I will put up with a lot in books. I’ll keep reading an ARC, even if I hate it, just to tell my thoughts on the book as a whole and be truthful to my audience.

But even my standards are higher than what this book was giving me.

LGBT Fantasy Cowboy | The Spells We Cast by Jason June

Nigel Barrett has spent his whole life preparing for the Culling, a spell-casting competition that determines which of the world’s teenage magicians will be stripped of their powers to preserve magical balance. But nothing could have prepared him to face Ori Olson, a broody rival whose caustic wit cloaks a painful past. From the moment Nigel and Ori meet, sparks fly. Their powers are stronger, more thrilling, the closer they get—not that they can risk getting attached. Because as the field narrows and the Culling grows more dangerous, Nigel and Ori realize there’s more at stake than just their powers. The greatest threat to magic, their future, and all of humanity might be the connection growing between them. . . .

The Spells We Cast gets published October 3rd, 2023!

DID NOT FINISH at page 113 (34%)

I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t do it.

The Spells We Cast has an interesting base idea. Humans descended from magical races (fae, elves, etc) have magic, but not everyone gets to keep their magic. They have to participate in this competition, the Culling, to see whether or not they are good enough magicians to keep their magic and go on to join the Guild in defeating the Depraved, monsters born from negative emotions.

However, beyond the concept, I didn’t like anything this book showed me in the first 100 pages.

To begin with, we have our main character, Nigel. His father failed in the Culling back when he was a teen, and he now resents his son’s magical abilities. Nigel’s entire life has been filled with needing to fight off the Depraved created from his father’s hatred of him, but rather than getting away from his father (or, I don’t know, telling his dad to get over it? Helping to stop the problem in any way?), Nigel and his grandma have just… dealt with this life threatening problem. For years.

Once we get a little further into the book and enter the Culling, we meet a larger cast of characters… and almost every single one hates Nigel for practically no reason! The book introduces us to an entire society full of stuck-up adults who never grew up and want their kids to get into the Guild solely based on nepotism. Not to mention their stuck-up kids who spread rumors about how “terrible” Nigel is. Yes, I get that this is a competition. Every teen out for themselves. They’re not going to be best friends. These teens are still absolutely horrible to Nigel for no reason.

This book just felt a little too hopeless and immature to me, and after 113 pages of severely disliking what I was reading, I thought it was best to just give up on this story.

I DNFed This Twice! | A Cuban Girl’s Guide To Tea And Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey

For Lila Reyes, a summer in England was never part of the plan. The plan was 1) take over her abuela’s role as head baker at their panadería, 2) move in with her best friend after graduation, and 3) live happily ever after with her boyfriend. But then the Trifecta happened, and everything—including Lila herself—fell apart.

Worried about Lila’s mental health, her parents make a new plan for her: spend three months with family friends in Winchester, England, to relax and reset. But with the lack of sun, a grumpy inn cook, and a small town lacking Miami flavor (both in food and otherwise), what would be a dream trip for some feels more like a nightmare to Lila…until she meets Orion Maxwell.

A teashop clerk with troubles of his own, Orion is determined to help Lila out of her funk, and appoints himself as her personal tour guide. From Winchester’s drama-filled music scene to the sweeping English countryside, it isn’t long before Lila is not only charmed by Orion, but England itself. Soon a new future is beginning to form in Lila’s mind—one that would mean leaving everything she ever planned behind.

Did Not Finish

The cover of this book is so cute, but that’s pretty much all it has going for it.

A Cuban Girl’s Guide To Tea And Tomorrow tells the story of Lila, a girl who had a lot go wrong in her life all at once. Her grandma dies, her boyfriend breaks up with her, and her best friend decides to just up and leave, destroying all the plans they made for their futures. Tired of it all, Lila goes for a run and doesn’t stop until she physically cannot continue, forcing her family to find her passed out, miles away from home.

Obviously, something has to change in Lila’s life, and so her family sends her to England for the summer.

I really wanted to enjoy this book. The characters seemed interesting, and I wanted to see the relationship between Lila and her love interest, Orion, develop throughout the book. But this book made that a lot more difficult than it should have been.

For one, I am generally not a fan of when books have something written in one language, and then immediately translates it in the next sentence. I tend to operate under the idea that if there is something in a book a reader does not know and cannot figure out with context clues, they can either look it up or continue on. Books that hold your hand with minor things like language translations are just a pet peeve of mine, and this aspect had me not enjoying this book as much as I should have.

But the content.

Nothing really happens in this book. In fact, beyond telling you that Lila self-harms with her little running spree and is forcibly sent to England, there’s nothing else I feel like I can tell you about! I would have loved to talk about how Lila takes over baking in the inn she’s staying at, but the book never focuses on it again after she gets the job! There’s a side plot about Orion’s sister getting into trouble, but with 100 pages between when I last read anything about it and when I decided to DNF the book, it’s obvious this book doesn’t want to focus on that either!

So what does this book focus on? What is this book about?

I decided to put this book down at page 156, then changed my mind a day later and tried again. I got as far as page 175 before coming to the conclusion that this book was a lot of words for absolutely nothing happening and decided to put it down for good.

What Is The Point? | The Name Drop by Susan Lee

When Elijah Ri arrives in New York City for an internship at his father’s massive tech company, Haneul Corporation, he expects the royal treatment that comes with being the future CEO—even if that’s the last thing he wants. But instead, he finds himself shuffled into a group of overworked, unpaid interns, all sharing a shoebox apartment for the summer.

When Jessica Lee arrives in New York City, she’s eager to make the most of her internship at Haneul Corporation, even if she’s at the bottom of the corporate ladder. But she’s shocked to be introduced as the new executive-in-training intern with a gorgeous brownstone all to herself.

It doesn’t take long for Elijah and Jessica to discover the source of the they share the same Korean name. But they decide to stay switched—so Elijah can have a relaxing summer away from his controlling dad while Jessica can make the connections she desperately needs for college recommendations.

As Elijah and Jessica work together to keep up the charade, a spark develops between them. Can they avoid discovery—and total disaster—with their feelings and futures on the line?

The Name Drop gets published September 12th, 2023!

DID NOT FINISH at 54%

I was really excited to read The Name Drop, but I ended up disliking it so much I decided it was best for me to just give up and not finish it.

One of my first issues I had with The Name Drop were the main characters themselves. Neither character stuck out to me as I read, and I felt like I didn’t know anything about these two beyond the basics (their names, the reason they wanted to switch lives, etc). Even though I had gotten 54% of the way through this book, I still felt like I was in the beginning stages of getting to know these characters and that I didn’t really care for what happened to them.

The second big reason I disliked this book was the details of the internship program they enter. While the company they are interning for is said to be a big tech giant with the power to get these teens into practically any future they want, there was absolutely nothing for these interns to do once they arrived in the program. In fact, it was up to Jessica, as the executive-in-training, to choose a “problem” for the interns to tackle AND figure out the solution to the problem, with no guidance from anyone but a former intern who half-assed his work and was long gone by the time Jessica arrives!

There was no reason to get to know these characters, no reason for this internship to exist, and no reason for me to continue on with this book.

Does This Remind You Of Anything? | Fortuna Sworn by K.J. Sutton

We were meant to be seductive. We were designed to lure humans in.

Fortuna Sworn is the last of her kind.

Her brother disappeared two years ago, leaving her with no family or species to speak of. She hides among humans, spending her days working at a bar and her nights searching for him. The bleak pattern goes on and on… until she catches the eye of a powerful faerie.

He makes no attempt to hide that he desires Fortuna. And in exchange for her, he offers something irresistible. So Fortuna reluctantly leaves her safe existence behind to step back into a world of creatures and power.

It soon becomes clear that she may not have bargained with her heart, but her very life.

DNF at 60%

This book actually opened up in a way that had me eager to learn more about the story.

Fortuna, our main character, has been kidnapped. Trapped in a cage and being set out for sale in a supernatural market, the book opens with her attempt to escape.

Part of her escape relies on a stranger, a faerie who happens to walk by and see her in the cage. He gets her the key, and while he disappears soon after, I knew he was going to be a big part of the story.

It’s a lot to explain from this point on, but here’s some basic details: Fortuna’s younger brother went missing a few years before the events of the story and was presumed dead. But soon after Fortuna escapes her own kidnapping, she finds a magic mirror that shows her brother is alive. Desperate to find him again, Fortuna agrees to a deal with the faerie who saved her: if he agrees to help her find her brother, she’ll marry him.

Fortuna soon finds herself in the Unseelie Court, and I thought this author’s version was unlike any I had read before. Seeing the details of this underground world and how it is set up was really interesting, and I really wanted to see the sorts of politics Fortuna suddenly finds herself in the middle of.

And then this book started getting… weird. Because in order to save her brother, Fortuna must go through a set of three trials, fully ensnaring herself in fae politics until she has changed into someone who cannot go back to the life she used to live.

Let’s recap a little bit. A girl finds herself in a relationship with a fae, then finds she is the only person who can save a male character she loves from the faerie world. In order to save him, she must go through three trials, the first of which takes place in a pit so the fae can watch her fight a giant wyrm.

Doesn’t this remind you of anything?

Now, let me take a second to say that I don’t mind retellings. I actively enjoy reading an author take inspiration from a story and seeing how they change it into their own tale.

But the further I got into Fortuna Sworn, the more similarities seemed to pop up between it and A Court of Thorns and Roses. And while I really enjoyed ACOTAR for taking the plot of (The Ballad of) Tam Lin and making it it’s own story, Fortuna Sworn felt like it didn’t quite understand the pieces of what made this story work. It felt like a baker subbing the flour in a cupcake recipe for sugar (“they’re both white granules!”) and complaining when they made something inedible.

Having the male Fortuna is trying to save be her brother was a choice when, historically, the character is a lover. It could work, and I think it’s an interesting spin on the Tam Lin tale, but this book never really gives readers time to care for her brother. To her, I’m sure there’s a lot of familial love there, but to readers, he was just a guy.

At 60% of the way through Fortuna Sworn, around the time it’s revealed she has to fight a giant wyrm, I got frustrated with it and decided to put the book down.