Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this advance copy.

I don't normally read a lot of YA contemporary romance books but I couldn't pass up this nerdy play on Beauty and the Beast. I'm glad that I did, it was a really fun, fast read and I enjoyed it a lot!

**Thank you NetGalley for providing me an ARC for an honest review**

I adore Ashley Poston books. I think I have enjoyed everything she has written. I Really liked the other books in her Once Upon a Con series, so I was really excited to be given the opportunity to read this one.
Bookish and the beast is a contemporary loose retelling of.. you guessed it.. Beauty and the Beast! It follows small town girl and book-lover Rosie Thorne, and Vance Reigns a Hollywood trouble maker who is currently laying low and hiding from paparazzi in Rosie's hometown; after he was involved in a controversial situation
I'm not going to recap the whole synopsis, but I just want to say that this story is so cute. Contemporary isn't usually my jam.. but I really like these books. There is a definite formula, and the plot line is predictable, but I didn't find that it took away from the enjoyment of reading this at all. I liked the relationships, and in particular the relationship between Rosie and her Dad. My only complaint is that I felt this book was really short. It only took me a night to read. Overall I would recommend it if you are looking for a light YA contemporary romance that is a little geeky and a lot cute.

I really love the world Ashley Poston has created. I really enjoyed the fairytale plot and the way it has been brought up to date, with more diverse characters and great lgbt rep.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

While trying to do a good deed, Rosie accidentally destroys a very valuable book. As penance, she is sentenced to assist in organizing the owner's home library, and it seems she will be assisting none other than notorious bad boy, Vance Reigns. Needless to say, they got off to quite a rocky start, but with each book that was shelved, the connection they both needed grew.

I am such a huge fan of this series, and though this book didn't take place at ExcelsiCon, Poston did a great job packing in all the nerdy goodness I have grown to love.

THE RETELLING

This tale is being billed as a "loose retelling" of Beauty and the Beast, but it was easy to find all the key elements from the original. A book loving heroine? Check. A spoiled, grumpy hero? Check. An overbearing meathead? Check. A punishment? Check. For me, the major elements were there, and I loved the way Poston chose to interpret them in her version.

THE RELATIONSHIPS

Though Rosie was still mourning the loss of her mother, she was lucky to have some incredible people in her life. He dad, aka "Space Dad", was a former punk rocker and currently a librarian. He was so sweet and loving, and I simply adored him. Rosie was also part of a fantastic trio. She had two bosom friends, who supported her and provided some fantastic moments in this story.

THE ROMANCE

I enjoyed watching Vance and Rosie two chip away at each other's barriers. Vance suffered from what many "famous" people do. He had been betrayed by many, and therefore, had trust issues. It was difficult for him to form real relationships, because he was never sure if the person's motives were pure. He wanted to be seen as Vance the person, not Vance the star, and it was wonderful he was finally able to find that in Rosie.

Rosie was still swimming in her grief over losing her mom. Her love of Starfield came from her mother, and she enjoyed delving into that world as a way to connect and maintain her mother's memory. She found it difficult to share this side of her life with many, but eventually found Vance was a good candidate.

I loved when these two finally got together, but I wish there had been more of those gooey moments between them. I will admit, I came for the romance and expected a little more. Regardless, I loved all the romantic bits I did get.

CATCHING UP WITH FRIENDS

I always say this when I talk about companion novels, but it's so fabulous to catch up with old friends. We got cameos and mentions, and one character from a previous book actually got quite a bit of page time. Obviously, I was delighted by this, but I was even more delighted by the reunion that occurred. At one point, almost all the MCs from this series are in one place, and it was fun to get to spend time with them as a group.

I am not sure how many other books Poston has planned for this universe, but I do hope there will be more, because I enjoyed each and every moment in this world.

Bookish and the Beast extends the Con series with another fairy tale inspired story. A Beauty and the Beast modern retelling, this is yet another easy to read romance. There is bi and intersex representation in this book that was matched to characters that are more than just their identity.

Bookish and the Beast is a quick and cheesy read full of stereotypes and clichés. I liked the characters in the book but I felt like everything moved way too fast at the start which made it hard to really know the characters.

The plot itself is very repetitive and nothing surprising happens, it follows the typical structure of a romance novel and is quite boring especially towards the end. However, I did like the world the book is set in, the link to the book characters and the movie.

The romance is cliché but cute as well but I still would have liked to know more about the characters.

2/5

Another great edition to the Once Upon A Con series that will leave you grinning from ear to ear. I am a huge Beauty and the Beast retelling fan and was not disappointed by Bookish and The Beast.

This is a contemporary romance that has so many fun tropes all rolled into one book - fairytale retelling, a celebrity and small town girl romance and being forced to work together. Rosie is so loveable and the cast of characters who surround her are fantastic with her honest and hilarious best friends and outgoing Dad. Vance is the typical misunderstood bad boy who you can’t help but love. I flew through this book and it is the perfect feel good read for rom-com lovers.

Ok this book was everything I wanted and more. I am addicted to the Geekerella world and need alllll the books. I cannot express properly how adorable this book was. I need more of Vance and Rosie because they are the sweetest!!

This is the third book in a series, although it could be read with out having read the other two. The connection between all of these books is a fandom based on a fictional TV show called Starfield. While this book was a fun retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale it also fell a little flat for me.

The story is told from both Rose and Vance’s points of view, which was something I really liked. I liked both of them as individuals, but their romance just didn’t really work for me. Their meet cute at Escelsicon was wonderful and so fun, but when they meet up again and started spending time together it just sort of fell apart for me. Rose is a sweet book nerd girl who had a couple of wonderful friends. Vance was a Hollywood bad boy on the surface, but really was a sweet guy on the inside.

The plot is pretty basic and moves through the usual retelling tropes. I did like the relationship between Rose and her father, who apparently is a retired semi rock star that is now a librarian?! I really wanted more about that story, but still a nice father figure which doesn’t always happen in YA. Also, Rose’s friends were often a source of humor for the story and very loyal to Rose. I also liked the weird little subplot of one of the popular guys trying to get Rose to go to the homecoming dance with him. It was a tad creepy and felt a little out of place in the story, but it was still kind of fun. The whole homecoming dance was fun though.

The one thing that I was really missing in this story though, was ExcelsiCon. The first two books revolved around and mostly took place at this FanCon, and I really missed it. I think it would have been hard to do a Beauty and the Beast retelling with the Con as the setting, but I did miss it.

If you enjoyed the first two books you will like this one, especially if you like Beauty and the Beast retellings. I don’t think there is another book planned in this series, although I certainly hope there will be. If you have not read the other two, I do suggest you start at the beginning, although you don’t need too.

I'm a HUGE fan of the Once Upon a Con series but this one is my favorite! I was a little nervous because Beauty & The Beast is my all time fave Disney movie but I LOVED IT! Bookish and the Beast has it all! It had nerdy references, doggies, hate to love and so much more! I love the dynamic between Rosie and Vance. Their banter was so fun to read. I really enjoyed all the references to the previous books. (this could be read as stand alone but you'd miss all the references!) I seriously count have loved this book anymore!

I knew just what I wanted out of this book and it delivered. Sometimes I really want a cute fluffy romance and that’s exactly what you’ll get! I didn’t personally connect with any of the characters, but it was still super cute and fun.

Bookish and the Beast, a Beauty and the Beast retelling, may be simultaneously one of Poston's largest departure from what you might expect and the most subtle. Let me explain. It doesn't take place at a convention, but it takes place in the same Starfield world starring Vance Reigns from The Princess and the Fangirl. If you've come expecting something that is ultra geeky - like how I associate books one and two - you may be disappointed as it's more subtle and geared towards books.

But Poston still delivers the geekiness and some of my favorite touches was how in love with books Rosie was and the video games Vance plays (I love the dating simulator touches!). And the same amount of detail to characters that I have come to associate with Poston is present. I loved reading the ways that Beauty and the Beast was transformed in Bookisn and the Beast. There are so many wonderful touches. From Vance's characterization in Hollywood, the consequences of Rosie's working for Vance, and more, the re-telling elements were incredibly clever.

Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston is the third book in her Once Upon a Con series, of which I’ll admit I have not read any of the prior books yet. I wish I had because I feel it might have given me an edge on some of the other side characters that popped up, but not having read the first two books did not take away from me loving this book.
This book is a nod to book lovers and the tropes we adore and hoard and search for obsessively in fanfic because it has a special place in our hearts and we want/need more of it. Rosie is a spitfire with an amazing support group behind her, her dad and two best friend’s are precious cinnamon rolls and I feel fine admitting that in this book review because, again, this book is a nod to fanfic lovers and I will write this post like I’m review a fanfic. Vance is the bad boy with a heart of gold, whose just really misunderstood, but honestly if he communicated a little bit (ie at all) would have been understood pretty well.
This book has a great library, lots of misunderstandings, meet cute/meet awful (they meet twice), a Cinderella like meeting and departure without a shoe to find the other character again, enemies to friends to lovers, a non-binary character and a bi-character actively, puns, dad jokes, disney jokes/nods, and two people who just really need to sit in a room and talk, but if that had happened we wouldn’t have had this cute read so it’s okay. They eventually talk anyway.
***
Not my usual read but this was cute and enjoyable.
***
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The description does a pretty thorough job of breaking down what to expect, and there aren't a whole lot of surprises in the plot, but its beauty is in its simplicity. There are ups and downs, but it's a light read, and it'll probably make you happy. Honestly, particularly right now, what more could you ask for?

Oh, what was that? If you said great characters, I agree 100%, and Bookish and the Beast has them in spades. Vance was ok - he didn't have me wowed, but he was a serviceable MC. Rosie, on the other hand...can I get a hell yes? She is feisty, outspoken, and assertive, and I. LOVE. HER. There's a moment where she punches the Gaston character in the face, and I just...I don't typically advocate for violence, but this was a real chef's kiss moment for me.

Also, huge shout out to Space Dad, her silver-haired, hella rad children's librarian father. 😍 Authors, do you want me to immediately fall in love with your book? Include an awesome librarian character. Impossible for me to resist. Then, of course, rounding out the fantastic character list, we have Quinn and Annie, Rosie's best friends. We should all be so lucky as to have a pair of BFFs as loving and supportive as they are. (I mean, I am so lucky, not to rub it in or anything. 😉)

But back to the book. Whether you're a Beauty and the Beast fan, a sucker for retellings, or just a fan of pleasant reads, this is a good book to add to your shelf. Give it a shot!

I wish I’d read the author’s note first. Understanding this story was a mash up of Ashley’s favorite things would have made me love it more. The things that felt cliche or over done were sweet and perfect after I understood her motivations. I’m thrilled she was able to design a book around her favorite trope things. (I too base my AO3 reads on certain fandoms, tropes, etc.)

I was very pleasantly surprised by this story! It follows Rosie, a normal girl who lives in a small town and is obsessed with the Starfeild Universe. One night she attends a cosplay event and meets a mysterious guy who she instantly clicks with and totally falls for. The only problem.... she doesn't know who he is and when the night is over, she has no way to contact him. He essentially vanishes and she is left with all the feelings left behind from the amazing night!

Flash forward, she ends up crossing paths with one of the main characters from the Starfeild Universe (Vance) and her life starts to get a little more complicated! Her and Vance do not get along at first and it appears that her favourite character might actually be a huge jerk! However, over the course of their time together they learn things about each other that show them they may have more in common than they thought!

I LOVED this story line!!! I am all for good banter between characters and the author did not hold back the banter! It was fabulous. I also love a good enemies to lovers trope. I feel like its predictable but I just don't care because every time I read it I just fall in love. Rosie and Vance's character were well done. I felt that Vance gave off the perfect amount of "jerky" characteristics that make you kind of annoyed with him but also I felt he seemed real and relatable so throughout the story I was finding I actually liked him quite a bit!

Of course the best part was the Beauty and the Beast retelling aspect. This story does not hold back on that at all which made me so happy because I love Beauty and the Beast. There is a grumpy rich kid living in what they call a "castle" in the small town, the grumpy rich kid has to learn some things about being a decent human being and befriends someone "normal", there is a library full of books that Rosie falls in love with, they bond over books..... LIKE how good can it get? I thought the author did a fantastic job pulling iconic moments from Beauty and the Beast and twisting them to fit this modern story!

Overall, this story had fun characters and it was romantic and sweet in all the right places. I just could not put this book down and read it in 1 day. I loved it so much and will be reading more from this author in the future!

I hadn't read any of Ashley Poston's books before, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! I'll admit, at first, I thought the book sounded slightly cringeworthy, but I had a lot of fun reading it and it was full of all the things you want to see in a YA romance: comedy, heartache, likable characters, diversity, and it just *felt* good.

So I quite literally started jumping up and down with excitement when this book arrived. The series so far had concentrated on comic-cons and general sci-fi and fantasy fandom greatness, but Bookish and the Beast is a bit of a change of pace. There are references to Starfield and ExcelsiCons explored in previous books, but this primarily focuses on the lives of Vance and Rosie away from the community and safety of fellow sci-fi and fantasy nerds.
Whilst remaining true to the series' light-hearted nature in a number of ways, Poston also starts to explore a more serious storyline for each of the protagonists, which definitely takes a more noticeable role without the chaos of a comic-con. Support networks are more important to the protagonists in this book than they first realise, and watching Vance and Rosie both come to accept this is a realistic and well developed narrative. Their growth and development throughout the book as individuals and as a pair is so heart-warming, particularly as they seem so different, yet are still able to find common ground to connect.
Since this book does not take place at a comic-con it feels a lot more relaxed in terms of pace, which I think works really well when addressing the grief that Rosie is going through, and also allows the characters more time to develop and adjust to their new living arrangements. It takes place over a much longer timeframe which means Rosie and Vance's relationship has time to go from really-not-friends to - well, it's a Beauty and the Beast retelling - better friends in a way that seems natural and realistic.
Not usually the biggest fan of romance but there's something about this Once Upon a Con series that I do just love. All of the books so far are a good balance of light-hearted narration and humour, and the exploration of more serious themes that themselves do not bring the overall tone of the book down. I always finish reading these optimistic and happy, and I'm so glad that Bookish and the Beast, though in a totally different setting to the other two in the series, manages to achieve this same overall effect.
Again we have some snippets and flashbacks to the previous books, just to keep us updated with the characters there, and I love how naturally they're drawn into the story without overshadowing our new protagonists.
Overall another excellent instalment to the Once Upon a Con series, so a huge thank you to Ashley Poston for delivering another awesome book, and another huge thank you to the publishers for providing me with an ARC. I'm awarding this book 4.5/5 for one again being just the nerdy, easy-going entertainment I need!

It’s not everyday that I read YA, but the once upon a con is always a classroom favorite. This retelling with a modern day twist of beauty and the beast will surely be a hit with my teenage age group classroom! Thank you for the ARC and I look forward to adding yet another great book to my collection.

I had trouble getting in to this one but I'm rating three stars for the Acknowledgements where the author said she wrote this book for her so who cares if you like it. I know others will enjoy it for the same reasons I didn't (sappy, predictable, very trope filled teen romance).