Member Reviews

DNF.

This book was just really not for me. I was not interested in the story or the writing style.

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I received this book in exchange for an honest review, which has not altered my opinion of this book, I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

I have found that I am hit and miss with Christina Bauer's writing and while some of her reimagining's have caught my attention, this one just didn't do it for me. I found the main character to be annoying and not in a redeeming way.

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Unfortunately I started this book around 3 times and just could not get into it. Ms. Bauer is a great author and I've sincerely enjoyed her previous books, however this one was not for me.

The farthest I got into this book was around 25% on my 3rd attempt. The premise sounded very promising, a human girl living among fairies with a sleeping beauty retelling, but to be honest I found the first part quire boring and could not connect to the main character.

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Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately I have been unable to get into it.

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After that DNFed disappointment earlier, I'm really glad I finally read this.

Christina Bauer is a master of taking things that are already there but giving them a fresh new take, new perspectives, and making it her own.

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First things first is that i really enjoyed this book, i liked the concept of every member of the magicorum follows a fairytale template. Our Main character bryar follows a sleeping beauty template. I like her as a character as she is very focused on what she wants and doesnt worry about what others want, she will fight them if she has too. I also liked the other characters in the book, Elle who is Bryar best friend who if you cant guess follows the cinderella template and Knox and Alec who are two wardens and our love interest. I liked how we got multiple points of views from the characters as we got to see different sides of the story and bothe relationships blossom. I listened to the audio of this which i really enjoyed i felt it really helped me to get into the story where i think if i were to read it physically it would have took me a while to get into. 

I gave this book 4 stars.

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I recently picked up Wolves and roses as I found it as an audiobook and thought to give it a go. The story was interesting and started really well (as well a tropey YA can be), but unfortunately, the narrator, the author herself, was too flippant in her rendition and it grated on me a lot. I have issues when characters are sassy all the time and nothing is really being taken seriously. I got really annoyed when one of the characters revealed something to the reader, but when he was supposed to say it to her, he kinds avoided it and left it for later which it will translate in "shit she doesn't know and I cannot tell her because I am not next to her and now something bad will happen which would've been totally unavoidable if I would've JUST told her" kinda trope. And that's a cardinal sin in my book. I already pretended that the main character didn't just have a major revelation that she didn't believe and not because it is such a different world, but because it suited the plot. So that's it for me, DNF at 50%. I am sure other people will see it differently, it is not a bad book, but it is definitely not for me!

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The story starts off quite slow and I eventually found myself skimming most of the book. The writing seemed slightly juvenile but I did like the unique plot and fairytale themes.

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This is a fun YA paranormal romance with a fairy tale twist. Bryar Rose is a seventeen year old failed sleeping beauty template. Her best friend Elle, is a Cinderella template. Bryar is looking forward to her 18th birthday when the sleeping curse that a fairy put on her will end and she will stop having to use the magical inhaler that her 3 fairy godmothers have given her to stop her from falling asleep when her episodes occur. Then she meets the man from her dreams, Knox, who is devastatingly handsome and also a werewolf and Elle falls for Knox's best friend Alec, a magician, and the magical romance and intrigue increase. I think that fans of mixed up fairy tale romances will enjoy this book.

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What a unique premise! I thought the plot was so riveting for this book. I could barely put it down, and I can't wait to read the next.one. I felt like the writing style was a little juvenile, but that's to be expected for the type of book this was. Bryar Rose is supposed to Sleeping Beauty, and she does in fact fall asleep at random times. All she wants to do is make it to her 18th birthday to break the curse on her. But she's not expecting to fall for a werewolf named Knox, and he gets wrapped up in trying to find exactly who - or what - Bryar Rose really is. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves fairy tale stories, stories with interesting twists or sweet romances.

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Seventeen-year-old Bryar Rose has a problem. She’s descended from one of the three magical races—shifters, fairies, or witches. That makes her one of the Magicorum, and Magicorum always follow a fairy tale life template. In Bryar’s case, that template should be Sleeping Beauty. Should being the key word. Trouble is, Bryar is nowhere near the sleeping beauty life template. Not even close. She doesn’t like birds or woodland creatures. She can’t sing. And she certainly can’t stand Prince Philpot, the so-called “His Highness of Hedge Funds” that her aunties want her to marry. Even worse, Bryar’s having recurring dreams of a bad boy hottie and is obsessed with finding papyri from ancient Egypt. What’s up with that?
This was an ok book. The story was a bit slow although I tried sticking through it as it had an interesting premise. Usually I can read YA books and like them but maybe I’m too old for this one.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

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I truly enjoyed this story. I loved the world and characters, I love how this story did not follow a predictable path, and I truly savored every moment of this read. I love fantasy and this fell into that category, but more than that, I can't wait to reread this book! This book is so unheard of, but it definitely deserves more hype! I will recommend this to everyone I know!

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As book one in a series this is off to a good start. We meet Bry who lives in paranormal world where they all have assigned life templates but she is failing at hers. What follows was intriguing as the world building goes on. Full of twists, turns, and surprise that will keep you entertained as the story progresses. Great for fans of paranormal YA moving into new adult genre. I really liked it so I give it 4/5 stars.

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Wolves and Roses is a unique young adult series based loosely on fairytales. Bryar Rose is a member of the Magicorum because of her heritage as either a shifter, fairy, or witch. The Magicorum follow templates of certain fairytales. Bryar’s just happens to be Sleeping Beauty, except she’s not the Sleeping Beauty type nor is she one to follow status quo. She just wants to be a normal human – one that doesn’t fall asleep all the time unless she uses her “special” inhaler. As she gets closer to the age of 18, though, her life becomes all topsy-turvy, she meets Knox, the hot guy from her dreams, and learns that not everything or everyone is as it seems.

I enjoyed Wolves and Roses as a book with somewhat complex themes but nothing so complicated that it became too intense. The book features twists and turns that shake things up but that’s was really made the book stand out to me. There is character development and Bryar and Knox are developed well as the story moves along. There world building was well done and I not only was able to picture the story in my head but I also felt like I was part of what was going on. I’m glad I had a chance to read this unusual paranormal novel.

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A young girl Bryar Rose is a Magicorum and all Magicorum have a life template they must follow and Bryar’s life template is sleeping beauty. But Bryar doesn’t live up to her life template so she must attend this special school for people who don’t live up to their life templates.

At this school Bryar meets her best friend Cinderella or Elle who like Bryar has secrets of her own. Elle is a very talented con artist who must hide out from her stepfamily. If Elle meets up with her stepfamily or they find her it could cause her a world of problems. Bryar and Elle become best friends who have each other’s backs always no questions asked.

Bryar has these episodes where she will fall asleep standing on her feet if it were not for her inhaler. Bryar was raised by her three aunties who make this special medicine for her to keep her from falling asleep.

Bryar’s three aunties want Bryar to marry prince Philpot but Bryar Rose wants no part of this prince but the thing is she has to fake it until her eighteenth birthday which is just right around the corner and then she will be home free. She won’t have to listen to her aunts anymore or anyone else for that matter. She will be free as a bird to live her life as she wants and that is a normal human with no magical powers.

Bryar meets the man of her dreams literally a man that she has been dreaming about her whole life. Knox is a werewolf who wants to protect Bryar from the moment he lays eyes on her. Whenever Bryar is around him her legs don’t seem to want to support her any longer. Knox is one hot dude that will make your tongue come out and slap your brains out.

Oh man I don’t know what to say about Wolves & Roses except that I fell hard and fast for the world the author created in Wolves & Roses and all the characters as well or most of them anyways there were a few that I didn’t care for much. From the very beginning I was drawn in and I couldn’t get enough of Wolves & Roses I fell asleep trying to devour this one, oh yeah. And that ending was awesome but it did leave me wanting more which is what a good story will do. Yes, I can’t wait to read the next book Shifters and Glyphs in the Fairy Tales of the Magicorum series.

I would recommend Wolves & Roses to anyone who loves fairy tales.

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Love this book. it took some time to read, but when you are finally started you don't know when to stop anymore. i have never read any book like this.
The book is very different then i would expected but in the good way :)

(sorry for short review, writing in english isn't my strongsted side)

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This started off really strongly but did tend to lose its way a bit, being slow in places.
A reasonable start to a new series.

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Oh how I wish this was a DNF for me. Right from the get go I seriously wondered where the author was going to go with this book, and to be honest I'm not sure what she was trying to achieve other than throwing way too much into one book - shifters, faeries, warlocks, zombies, Egyptology, hackers, thieves... seriously, WTH?! Oh and the main character is about to turn 18 and this entire book spans the few days before her birthday... what?
The premise of this book is okay but there is so much that has been crammed into this book that it was just a joke. I was telling a friend what I had read every time I stopped in disbelief, and he was could not believe the stuff that I was reading, and honestly, neither can I. I ended up getting distracted and putting this book down for a few days, oh how I wish I had never picked it up again.

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I was given a free ebook copy of this book in leu of a review. This hasn't affected my rating or my review of the book.

This was an unfortunate book for me, and required two readings before I felt that I could review it in any way. It's one of the reasons why I took so long to write up a review, because even after i finished it for the second time, I still wasn't sure what I felt about this book. I had to re-think it again, take a few days to settle and even at the end of this, I was still not entirely able to organise my thoughts to explain properly what I felt about this book.

The beginning of the book, just the first few pages drew me in and made me want to keep on reading. The idea of opening up with the main character in 'group therapy' to help sort out her problem of not following her allocated outline of her fairy tale (known in the novel as a -template-), along with other modern day fairy tale characters, is different. It sets up the entire idea of how this story is set in an alternative world, where it has the features of everything we enjoy now, but has the twist of being inhabited by characters who go through the outline of the old fashioned fairy tales. The main character is supposed to be under the template of Sleeping Beauty, except she doesn't like animals, and would prefer to just past her 18th birthday and be free of all of the constraints. Under the rules of her template, this is when she will fall asleep before being rescued by a -prince-.

And this is where the author shines. The book is listed as being a more twisted and dark modern day fairy tale, and the author manages to actually pull this off. It's proven just in the opening, by the interaction between the main character and the leader of the group therapy. The banter back and forth, along with the inner thoughts of the main character who knows she can rely on her best friend, under the template of Cinderella, is only the beginning of a strong start, that continues through for most of the book. It's a credit to the writer that this isn't the issue with the characters, as the main character (Bryar Rose), best friend (Elle), love interest (Knox), and his best friend (Alec) are strong throughout and each have interesting back stories. There is a reason why not only do the four's stories intermingle with each other, but you can see how this would blossom into friendship and romance.

I was rooting all the way through, until it fell apart for me. I will try to make this as spoiler free as possible but I may have to touch on certain points of the story in order to make my point clearer. There is a running two issues in this book that Bryar and her friends need to solve, or at least make progress to. One of them ties into her template, and the other is in regards to what makes Bryar believed to be a failing Sleeping Beauty. These two run concurrently, and neither are forgotten for too long that one is pushed completely to the wayside. The author is clearly skilled in this, and Bryar is kick-ass through all of it, but then we come to the third part of it.

And it all falls apart. Suddenly, Bryar being realistic, likeable and someone the reader can root for, is thrown to the wayside. Thankfully, the problem isn't that she becomes a damsel in distress and needs to be rescued, but at the same time, it means that it goes to the other extreme. The areas that keep the entire story grounded and believable become a complete X-Men Phoenix and it was at that point that I very carefully put my Kindle down, and walked away. Ii couldn't return to the book to finish it for another week, and even then I was counting down the pages until I could move onto something else. Once I did, I was relieved and immediately buried myself into another book that I knew I would enjoy, and I knew that this was a bad sign.

It took several more months before I could return to it, and even then I couldn't figure out how I felt about it. It had a good start, a very promising story, that just lost itself in order to have a fantastic battle at the end. And in the beginning, the fight is brilliant. Bryar is up against the evil villain with just her wits and with what little fighting abilities she has. It's clear that she has a big mountain to climb to win, and I would have felt that this book ended on a high note if she'd barely survived. If she had fought, and by luck and using her head, managed to defeat. Yet instead Bryar wen't into full Power Level, and blasted the villain.

There's very little left for me to state about this book, other than it's a promising book, with a brilliant premise that the author manages to carry it off until the very end. I am highly disappointed, and won't be reading any further books of this series. If she starts another one, then i will look into it but won't make it a priority.

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Thank you for the chance to review this book, however, unfortunately, I was unable to read and review this title before it was archived.

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