I received an e-ARC of The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review! Any quotes used in this review are from the ARC copy & may not be in the final book.

"Be still my pixie heart."

I’m gonna be real with ya. this book is so stinkin’ cute. By accident, I picked it up last night & didn’t move until the very last page. & it wasn’t even because I was at the edge of my seat, but just because it was so cute & very fast-paced. I believe it only took me about 3 hours & 30 minutes to read. Quick reads are always good to add to the TBR, right?

The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project takes us deep into TropeTown; a place that resembles that of a cartoon — you know, bright sunny skies & perfect puffy clouds. In TropeTown lives Tropes, and to be more specific, lives the Manic Pixie Dream Girl & Boy Tropes.

For those who need a quick reminder on what the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is TV Tropes has your back —

"Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists to help the protagonist achieve happiness without ever seeking any independent goals herself".

So, the plot of this book is pretty simple — Riley, a Manic Pixie Dream Boy is sent to group therapy for going off-script. Here, he meets & falls in love with Zelda, a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. It’s against the rules (– alot of things are against the rules in TropeTown) to date someone in therapy. Other things happen, we have a conflict, a climax, a solution & the end.

As soon as I read the synopsis of The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project, I requested it, because I absolutely love meta. & I’m a true sucker for the Trope. It was a double whammy on my interests. This book was definitely unique, in terms of subject matter. I loved seeing this world, and was very intrigued by the concept of these Tropes getting called into work by their novel’s author.

"Whoever said laughter is the best medicine not only didn’t fully appreciate the miracle of cough drops, but also didn’t consider laughter doesn’t cure you — it merely transfers the pain to your abs temporarily.".

Also, remember #TeamJacob & #TeamEdward? Well, this book has #TeamMarsden & #TeamRafferty & I’m 100% here for Marsden. There’s also this play on Starcrossed Lovers/Forbidden Love & Love Triangles. SO MANY DIFFERENT TROPES, I LOVE IT.

One negative thing that I’d have to say is that I didn’t care much for the relationships in this book, but for me that didn’t matter much, because I was having too much fun with the Manic Pixie Dream Boy. & just seeing the world of TropeTown.

— also, while writing this review, it’s worth noting that I definitely just raised it a star, because I’m realizing how much I actually enjoyed this read. It was definitely adorable & a lot of fun. I definitely recommend taking a trip to TropeTown & reading The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project.

★★☆☆☆

(2 stars)

(I received this book for free for an honest review off of Netgalley)

I'm a little stumped on writing this review, hence my lack of attempt at coming up with a more snappy title. This is a very tricky book to review, on account of it being extremely meta about... books. And itself. Is it satire the plot, world, and characters are lacking? Is it on a winking purpose that the romance and story arc is so predictable and simple? Is the writing style meant to lampshade the meta nature of the story?

What I can say for certain is my own levels of interacting with it, and I didn't end up liking this book much. The meta nature makes it far harder for me to say 'this ain't a great book'. We'll see how I can best talk about this.



I think right off the back I should mention I LOVE- or, loved- tropes and trope critique. I was an avid reader of TVtropes in middle to high school, often browsing random pages of every piece of media I'd ever consumed, and being taken on wild tours of analysis. It was a lot of fun. Before that, I had a semi obsessive period with the mary sue archetype, reading an ENDLESS amount of meta about it. Some of the first writing I ever did when I was about ~10 was a trope-heavy satire fanfiction of Invader Zim. (Yes, it is with great fear I admit this fact openly).

So while 'contemporary YA' isn't my take (which is what this is, even if it is a heavy fantasy at the same time), I requested this book off Netgalley due to my interest in tropes and literary analysis. I don't really know what I expected- I was just intrigued by the fact such a weird, meta book was on offer that I requested it. I think when I saw I was approved I slightly regretted this choice, since I wasn't positive I'd actually enjoy the book. Luckily, it's a short read full of short chapters, so it moved quick enough.

Plot
Here's what the book is about: There's a world called Tropetown, where various instances of literary tropes live when they aren't 'on the job'. When an author in 'reader world' starts a book, they often hire tropes to fill in the story as extras and bit characters, compared to the 'developeds', AKA main characters with proper story arcs. Tropes who misbehave are sent to the Termination Train and never seen again.

Riley is a Manic Pixie Dream Boy, a variant of the dream girl. This is a very well known trope, but if you don't know it, it's the idea of a super quirky, weird girl who comes into a boring average guy's life to shake things up as a love interest, usually before then leaving/dying/whatever. It's a heavily critiqued trope, but has been very popular in the part (around the early 2000s mark).

Riley is sent to group therapy for being unhappy with his job. His best friend was terminated for unknown reasons, and he's tired of constantly playing the same bit characters with no development or story of their own in books. Therapy consists of a couple other pixie dream girls, including his love interest Zelda.

Analysis
So, what can be said about this book? Riley works to think about his life and deal with therapy, all the while falling for Zelda (who he can't date because it's unclear if she likes him, and also in therapy patients aren't meant to date each other. He makes friends with some other pixies and also deals with the news the tropetown council is thinking of retiring the trope for good to the museum. He is currently in a novel and works to behave there.

I don't know, it's sort of a... strange slice of life? Slice of life, but it's life in a weird parody universe that is still written pretty much seriously. This book is light hearted, but rarely tries for humor, so I don't think it's meant to be funny. By the end, it's meant to be pretty serious, with a lot of messages about self-love and acceptance and forging your own path in life. To me, this meshes oddly with the very fictional, self-aware universe they all live in.

Things are. I suppose. Ludicrous? The world and characters are so over the top in their actions and existence, and yet mostly are talking about serious things. This is especially true about 3/4 into the book, where Riley and some friends visit the museum of past tropes, and... reflect earnestly and seriously about racist caricatures and story telling devices. A mention of problematic tropes like that perhaps have a place in a book ABOUT tropes, but are jarring when everything around it is extremely light-hearted and cheesy. The talk is pretty well handled, it was just a 'wow, am I really reading the term 'magical negro' right now? In this book?' moment.

The characters were difficult to evaluate because they were all... tropes. Still, part of the book is that they are more than tropes, and deserve a chance to be seen as full people, especially as manic pixies. This is probably true, but I still didn't any of the characters as particularly developed. Riley had the most sense and personality as the first person lead, but the group therapy pixies were very interchangeable, and the more developed of the supporting cast was still quite lacking. Most notable was Nebraska, someone who I thought was a one-off joke at 'Looking for Alaska', but turned out to be a very one-dimensional mean girl bully.

One of the strangest character choices is the on the side, entirely indiscernible love triangle going on at group therapy. For one, the therapist is involved (geez! that's not allowed!) (also I pictured her as 45 until she was suddenly dating two of the people in therapy). For another, it's something we really are just told about in two dramatic revelations, but I sure as hell didn't see any evidence to back that up. Therapist turns out to be the ex of Nebraska, and then is in a relationship with another girl in therapy right now. This is all around super weird. I suppose as tropes they are ageless and come into existence fully grown, but Therapist is a New Age Therapist trope, which implies maybe 30 at the youngest, and Manic Pixie Dream Girl is usually high school to early 20s. Even if it's not a 'real' age gap, it was super weird.

Also, not the most helpful that the relationship was only revealed to the main character as a secret, not something particularly noticeable to the reader. I mean, there's some mention of heteronormative standards and That's A Lot Of Bisexuals, but it stood out as a badly done, meaningless little subplot.

Conclusion
Tropes are easy to analyze. Books about tropes that may or may not be heavy handed and strange on purpose are near impossible.

This book wasn't that funny, or interesting. It was just sort of strange, or else too cheesy. It was something, alright. I don't know if it was for me. I don't even know if it is middle grade or YA. I don't know what genre this really is.

I got nothing.

It wasn't bad. But I couldn't call it good either.

This is a book is a satire of YA Tropes told in meta form. It had such potential but there was just too much going on for me. It was confusing at times, and some of the jokes felt forced. I really appreciated what the author was trying to do with this book but I just didn't love it. It was pretty funny and quirky overall but I just felt it was confusing overall.

When I first read the description for this book, I immediately became interesting. A piece of YA metafiction that's a play on popular tropes in YA books? Yes please!

Unfortunately, I thought this book was just okay.

While the world was interesting and I enjoyed seeing how this story would play out, I found myself not super impressed with the world-building and characters in this book. I felt as though some things needed to be a little bit more fleshed out to really blow me away.

It's a fast read, and it did keep me wanting to read more and see how the story played out. It just felt a little too lackluster for my own personal reading taste.

That being said, I definitely still recommend picking up this book. Even if it wasn't my cup of tea, it may be yours!

This was such a fun book! The idea of TropeTown was so great, and it was really neat to look into this imagined world where authors get some of their characters. It's kind of difficult for me to review this, because the things that I loved aren't really things that I normally look for in books - there were great references to other books, and interesting discussions about how tropes have evolved over time. If you're looking for something a little more out-of-the-box that still has elements of familiarity, definitely give this one a try.

This book is not what I expected at all. It was unique and very meta to the point that I liked it but didn't love it. The concept was very fresh and made me want to keep reading. What stuck with me the most were the scenes where Riley was in a book within the book and talking about the Author writing his scene. I liked these scenes the most because I could easily relate. When I write, I imagine my characters and how I can get them to move, talk, and do the things I want them to do. Lenore really understood the complexities of writing for your main characters as well as the minor ones. I do think that some of the concepts went a bit above her head and got away from her at times (thus the 3 stars) because I found it a little hard to keep up at times. The meta of the whole thing was strange to me sometimes because the fictional characters were aware that they weren't real and that the reader (aka me or you) was reading the story. It's clever but I think that more could have been done with the whole story. The author definitely did her research on tropes, especially for the main character of the story, and I felt I was getting a literary history lesson at one point. As a whole, the story was decent enough and I think that writers will get a kick out of it.

In TropeTown, everyone fits a certain character type, called away when an Author has need of them in their novels. Riley is a Manic Pixie Dream Boy, currently sentenced to therapy for speaking out in his latest novel. But this seems to be a trend with the other Manic Pixies, and now their trope is in trouble of being retired--permanently. In order to save their trope, they have to get to the bottom of TropeTown's secrets; but it might be too late.

I received a copy of this for review from Net Galley and Lerner Publishing group, and I have to say, the title immediately grabbed my attention. The premise is also super fun; Applehans was very creative in showing how these characters and tropes worked. Main characters get to stay in their novels forever, reliving the stories for the reader. Tropes are doomed to jump around until they find the one novel they want to settle in; for Riley, this never seems like an option. He wants the chance to be the star of the story.

The creativity of the story is also what makes the story a bit confusing. While the reader can figure most of the town rules out throughout the story, there are moments where it's difficult to to follow the rules and why certain events happen. The ending itself is a bit ambiguous; which is fine, but I wanted a bit more explanation to get me a more satisfactory ending for Riley.

We also essentially got a novel that was made up of mostly background characters who are allowed to be the star of the story for once, which reminded me a bit of The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness. I loved reading about the world that Appelhans created, and I think there's a lot of potential to create more meta-fiction surrounding this idea. Do other tropes have such struggles?

All in all, this is a fun read that will make you think about the creation process behind a lot of your favorite books. Though the message gets a bit lost at the end, you'll still want to read more about Riley and his fellow Manic Pixies.

This is a really cute book that I was ultra excited to read when NetGalley approved me. I think that as readers, we all love to joke around about tropes and the overuse of certain ones (especially the manic pixie dream girl trope), but I never imagined a book centered entirely around them.

This book is kind of like one long play on words. Does that make sense? It’s written around a ton of ironic cute fluffiness. It’s a book about book characters… knowing that they are book characters (but not for this book, per se), who get “requested” from authors to be in a novel. Basically, the tropes are like actors, except instead of watching their work on the big screen, we get to read about it on the pages of our favorite books.

The whole idea was (sorry to use this word again but I’m lacking a better descriptive) cute. All of the little manic pixies were very manic pixie-ish and Riley (AKA the only manic pixie boy who also happens to be the character who stared in The Fault in Our Stars [though this is never explicitly said because I’m sure the author isn’t trying to get into trouble but it is very heavily insinuated]) falls in love with one of the girls (Zelda). Each trope gets a character description sheet and everyone pretty much fits into their stereotype. A trope comes into existence when needed by readers and authors, so the tropes aren’t developed beyond TropeTown.

So, yeah, it was all very cutesy. But also a little… confusing? Developeds (AKA narrators or POV characters) aren’t in TropeTown but they are still living. I think? But they just live in the story written for them… I think.

I guess the reason I didn’t click with this was because it was so ironic and trope-y. I mean, yeah, the book is about tropes but I swear you can only take so much of manic pixie “cuteness” before you’re incredibly over it. It was a really quick read though, so it’s not like it drags on. It just didn’t hold my attention.

It did touch on some pretty important topics, however. I wish these issues would’ve been featured more throughout the book instead of focusing so closely on the retirement of the manic pixie dream girl trope. For instance, at one point a couple of the characters got a lesson about racism and sexism that is often used in some tropes and why that shouldn’t be acceptable because it’s essentially a negatively fueled stereotype. I think that the goal was for the entire book to be about this lesson, but it fell short in that aspect to me because there wasn’t enough focus on it.

Overall, it’s not something I hated. If you like quick, fluffy, ironic stories, than I’d suggest you check it out! But it wasn’t really for me, sadly.

This was a fun, lighthearted meta book with self aware characters acting as characters in other stories. I enjoyed the message and the characters, however the story jumped around quite a bit without much world building. There was so much more I wanted to learn about Trope Town! I think with some polishing, this could be a really great story.

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was a very novel novel. I got a lot of big The Good Place vibes from it, with all the meta and philosophical ideas floating around in it. There was a lot to enjoy!

I found the general world building very interesting. A lot needed explaining, so there was a lot of exposition. Because most of the main characters were actually created to be MPDG (and a boy!) they could be kind of irritating in their almost unconscious quirkiness, but then they also were very conscious of this. I also found the romance between Zelda and Riley to be kind of dull. For most of the book it felt like Riley barely knew Zelda, and like a MPDG romance was literally playing out.

The ending was perhaps the most unsatisfying part. Saving the Trope with a musical number? It was so sudden and so lighthearted. And then all the Manic Pixie main characters got Legacy offers? I would have liked more tension, as the stakes kept rising and rising then...everything was wrapped up so quickly.

Overall, I give this a 3.5 for a really original concept, with some okayish bits throughout.

An amusing and light-hearted story that has been repeated before. While awareness is one thing, the story took too much time poking fun at tropes rather than the plot.

This was SO cute and the premise was so interesting. The tropes having group therapy sessions definitely reminded me of the scene from “Wreck it Ralph” where all the villains get together for a support group, so that was fun.

I also really enjoyed the discussion of different tropes that have been utilized throughout history and why authors stopped using them. The only thing I thought was odd was that a love triangle ended up forming towards the end and wasn’t actually resolved.

Overall, this was cute (due to all the Manic Pixie characters), but nothing about this blew me away.

Funny, endearing, charming, subversive, and definitely meta, The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project is a fun read.

Premise: Riley, a MPDB, is sent to group therapy for not listening to his author (read: for going off the script of being an MPDB). While there, he meets Zelda and shenanigans ensue.

Riley is stereotypical enough to justify his trope, yet his self-awareness and internal dialogue, break him from the form. He’s delightful and worth cheering for, and I found myself flipping the page, hoping he’d find the ending he needed.

Ditto for Zelda, and the other characters—they’re all personalities I understood (even if I didn’t always agree with what they were doing).

This is one of those delightful stories that manages to leave readers feeling both wildly clever and scrambling to keep up, all at once. Anyone who has ever sat through (survived through??) an English class will find the humour in Riley’s rants on stock characters, description, etc. (so meta!), but there are enough yearnings from Riley (where do I belong? Where is my agency?) to keep readers wondering and guessing along with him.

I love the twisty-break-from-the-predictable-ending and I thought the world building of Trope Town was delightful.

All in all, The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project is a zany read that uses a light touch to ask deeper questions about our interconnectedness and how we define ourselves.

There was so much to love about this book, but there was also so much to critique. Overall, I enjoyed it, and it had some really great progressive moments despite having room to grow in other areas.

A brief summary: Riley is the only Manic Pixie Dream BOY in Trope Town, and he is in trouble. He's been a little too negative around his authors, so he is ordered to therapy where he can learn to behave like the proper supporting role that he is. Trouble arises, however, when he finds himself infatuated with another Manic Pixie Dream Girl in town only to discover she's also in his therapy group. Oh yeah, and the whole trope is at risk of getting retired, so there's that too. What's a Manic Pixie Dream Boy to do?

Things I Loved:
- The discussion of the writer's creative process with their characters -- It was very imaginative how these characters "go to work" when authors need them for a novel. It was a really unique concept, and it was described very well! I wish there was more of this throughout the whole novel as it was one of my favorite parts.
- The creativity and "meta" element of it -- Trope Town, the "Developed" characters, etc.
- The ending written for the fictitious book within this book -- I don't want to spoil it, but it's a nice progressive ending!
- The diversity of some of the characters -- There are some hetero romances, but there's also some mention of LGBTQ+ romances, and as a teacher, I like putting more relationship diversity in the hands of my students. This book would easily make all readers feel included.

Things I Didn't Like:
- Some underdevelopment in description -- At one point, the book talks about how authors too often forget to describe the setting and the characters are working in a blank room... I actually felt like that happened a lot in THIS book. While there was plenty of description of the characters' outfits and hair and whatnot, I felt like there was much to be desired about what the unique world they live in looked like.
- At some points it got really preachy -- My husband and I love watching "The Good Place" which is a fairly philosophical sitcom; however, sometimes my husband complains that there is too much preaching to the audience about philosophy and the meaning of life. I kept coming back to those complaints while I was reading this book. Before reading, I was already familiar with the author's criticism of the Manic Pixie trope and that too often these characters are underdeveloped, formulaic, and overused. However, I felt like I just kept getting hit over the head with it throughout the book, and it became really redundant. The book itself sold me on the idea of the trope and its limitations, so I didn't need preaching within the book about it as well.
- Overt criticism of other authors -- There's a character named Nebraska who was a breakaway start after being in a book and mysteriously dying... The developed character in the story spent the rest of his novel pining after her and wondering what happened... The criticism here is pretty blatant, and while I see its merit, there's something I don't like about tearing down another author in your book. I like the idea of authors supporting authors.
-The multiple plots -- I don't mind having an "A" story line and a "B" story line to a novel (it's what makes a novel interesting and complex), but I felt like the story lines all suffered because there were too many things to focus on and not enough development to any which one. There's the Riley love story, there's the Riley friendship story/therapy, there's the mystery of Finn (Riley's best friend), there's the potential retirement of the trope, and there's Riley at work... I wish some things had been cut so that I could feel more invested in the others.
- Character development -- Sometimes I was left confused because the characters were a certain trope, but then they were "playing a role" so it was hard to tell if the characters ever amounted more than the tropes they were assigned to. There were also some times that Riley would tell readers that he was a certain way because of his trope, but then he would also say he didn't know how to behave otherwise because of his trope... I wanted to know who he really wanted to be then if I wasn't seeing the real him.

Overall. I enjoyed it, but I wish the author had cut some things in order to expand more of the truly unique areas like the characters at work. I felt like that was one of the most meta moments, and it was one of the most quirky things about this book, so if there was more time spent there, I think this could have been a serious hit. It's still a fun book, and I will certainly recommend it to my readers, but there is room for growth. The author could easily write another book about another side of Trope Town, focusing on fewer plot lines, and I would love to read it!! She's started building this unique world, and I would love to see her continue developing it!

Cute and whimsical, this early YA book explores the world of stereotypes using fictional characters who long to be more than their boilerplate dictates. Riley is a Manic Pixie Dream Boy who works hard and is true to type, but chafes a bit under perceived Author mismanagement. He is sent to Group Therapy with a set of Manic Pixie Dream Girls — just one step away from termination — in order to learn to “remember his place” and “The Author is always right.” However, when the Trope Town Council decides that perhaps the Manic Pixie Dream trope is more trouble than it’s worth, Riley and his therapy cohort have to come up with something big to show how truly important their trope is.

On the surface this is fun and a little silly and will appeal to the younger part of the YA demographic. However, there is some depth to the discussion of literature, the use of stock characters (stereotypes) and the impact that can have on readers. In the Trope Museum the characters bear witness to old stereotypes that have been “retired” due to being offensively racist, sexist, etc. The Uncle Tomfoolery trope is a prime example. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope is on the chopping block for being sexist. But Riley, as an experimental “Boy” version, shows how it may be the association of a particular race, gender, sexual preference with a particular trope that is the issue, not the trope itself. I liked that a lot — there are various personality stereotypes that exist in the world — the damage (I feel) is associating them with whole groups of people based solely on physical characteristics.

*** Spoiler alert *** One more small thing I appreciated. Riley finds himself at the center of a love triangle between Zelda (a Manic Pixie Dream Girl) and Ada, a “Developed” girl in the novel he is working on. At the end of the book, all three step off into the sunset on the Termination Train to Reader World without having to resolve the triangle. They are happy to pursue their own lives and see where it takes them without necessarily “winning” the boy. When I was growing up, just about every movie I saw and book I read focussed on the girl falling in love with the right boy. Regardless of her other pursuits, if she didn’t get the boy at the end, she felt like a failure. Since I was never taught this explicitly, it was difficult to question to the premise. Fiction has a powerful ability to teach us norms of expectations and behavior under the covers as it were. I like the not-so-subtle messages in this book.

I loved this book! The full review will be posted soon at kaitgoodwin.com/books! Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity to connect books to their readers!