I featured Happily Ever Afters as Book of the Day on all my social media platforms, included it in a weekly roundup and will include it in a monthly roundup of new releases.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for a review. I requested this book after following the author on Twitter. She is absolutely adorable and I was so excited when I was approved to read this book. This book is an absolute delight. Tessa and her family are on average family. Both the mom and Dad work very hard to provide their children with the best in life, including sending both children to special schools. Tessa's brother Miles is special needs, and being a mother to 3 special needs children, I always appreciate this addition to books. Miles steals the show. I love that he is an actual important part to this story and not just a side character. Tessa's neighbor Sam is a caring and compassionate boy, who is not afraid to share his feelings, and there is just not enough of that in the world. Sam's character is what I hope my boys grow up to be. This book covers so many important topics; special needs, social injustice, racism, stereotyping and bullying. This book is sweet, smart, and thoughtful and is the book everyone needs to read right now. A definite 5 star read and a strong debut from this author.

Happily Ever Afters, by Elise Bryant, tells the story of sixteen year old Tessa Johnson, whose family has just moved south to Long Beach, California. Tessa is a lifelong fanfiction and romance writer, and is excited to be starting at a new prestigious arts high school, where she will get to focus on her writing. Unfortunately, the moment she sits down in her first class, Tessa finds that for the first time in her life, the words are simply not there. Cue her best friend, Caroline, who insists that in order for Tessa to write again, she needs to experience a series of romance-inspired happily ever after moments. Tessa spends the book navigating this list, her suddenly strained friendship with Caroline, parental disapproval, and the potential of romance with not one, but two new classmates -- Nico, the brooding artist type who already has a girlfriend, and Sam, the burgeoning chef and dorky boy next door.

Unlike many books that ostensibly fall under the category of YA, this book actually feels like it is written about teenagers. Tessa, Caroline, and Tessa's new friends (and enemies) at her new high school actually feel like they are sixteen -- which is simultaneously fun and cringe inducing. I had to put the book down several times to recover from my secondhand embarrassment -- but after all, cringeworthy behavior is a pretty big part of being a teenager.

The writing is simple, and the story is relatively unoriginal. It hits most of the YA high school romance plot points (embarrassing moment at the hands of a rival, high school party, new best friends who tell her all about the various groups at her new school in what is basically a word-for-word retelling of the cafeteria scene in Mean Girls). What makes Happily Ever Afters shine is the wonderful way in which Bryant writes about issues surrounding race, feminism, mental health, and disability. Tessa's brother, Miles, "has disabilities," as Tessa repeats throughout the book. Miles is a real character, not reduced to a series of clichés, and the way Bryant writes about him and the way the world reacts to him, including Tessa's deep love and admiration for him, as well as her occasional frustration and embarrassment, shows Bryant's expertise in the subject. There are many examples throughout the book of various social justice subjects being treated with equal thoughtfulness and respect. Another way in which Tessa really feels like a teenager is her simultaneous cringe-worthy immaturity when it comes to friendship and romantic issues, paired with the kind of critical thinking and clarity about social justice issues that one would expect from a smart, thoughtful Black teenager with a disabled brother.

Overall, it is a solidly 3.5 star book, with some moments of wonderful writing on social justice issues. However, the thing that pushes it into 4 star territory for me, personally, is the setting. Tessa's family have just moved from Roseville to Long Beach, and Bryant's novel serves as almost a love letter to the protagonist's new city. As a Long Beach resident myself, I was utterly charmed by her descriptions of the real restaurants that Tessa and her friends visit, and the specific, Long Beach-y places she goes on dates. This book made me crave cinnamon rolls from Sweet Jill's and potato tacos from Hole Mole. It is a book packed with food descriptions overall, so be sure to grab a snack before you sit down with it.

Trigger/content warnings: anti-Black racism, ableism, Harry Potter references.

Thank you to NetGalley and Balzar + Bray for the ARC!

I'm not a big YA reader, but I really enjoyed this story. It was cute and reminded me of my high school days. Although the characters were younger than myself, they were relatable and got into typical teenage shenanigans.

It was cute and enjoyable.

I received a copy of the book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

Such a cute story that also touches on important issues! I really love when YA brings up important topics, such as racial issues and disabilities - and this book did a great job of doing so!

Although I was extremely excited about this book before reading it, and even as I started the book, as I continued reading, it became more and more clear that this book was not really for me.

After moving to a new school that focuses on the creative arts, Tessa runs into major writing block and imposter syndrome. She and her best friend come up with a plan for Tessa to be able to write her romance books again--by experiencing a romance of her very own with the school's most popular boy, Nico. Although this was a little far-fetched, I can absolutely believe this is the kind of harebrained scheme a couple of high schoolers would come up with, so I'm not mad at it.

What I am mad at, however, is the fact that Nico is DATING ANOTHER GIRL THE ENTIRE TIME. Tessa never even stops to question the morality of her actions, even when another character straight up says she's trying to steal someone's boyfriend. Tessa doesn't care. She also doesn't care when the real love interest, a sweetheart boy-next-door named Sam, clearly shows his interest and is obviously the superior choice. She does whatever she wants to do, screw everybody else. Although there was a moment of reckoning and character growth for Tessa, it all happened too quickly and too close to the end of the book to feel satisfying to me.

This book also tried to have conversations about racism, with Tessa being mixed, and ableism, with her brother having disabilities, but they felt a little disjointed and sparse. I would have preferred the book to have a slightly more serious tone and hone in on these topics more, as well as Tessa's anxiety and her relationship with her mom, rather than promote her scheming to steal another girl's boyfriend just so she can get her writing mojo back.

I did enjoy the writing style and several of the side characters, especially Sam, as mentioned, and Lenore, as well as learning about Tessa's creative arts school, but I just can't get over the borderline cheating that happens in this book. Sadly, this is not everything I hoped it would be, but still a fun(ish) quick read.

Elise Bryant's "Happily Ever Afters" is a cool draught of refreshing romance after a drought in the desert. This book not only made me feel giddy with excitement for the protagonist, it made me wish that I myself hadn't given up on writing - to the point where I started subconsciously outlining my long-dead novel. If you want a book to remind of what passion is, both romantically and platonically, read "Happily Ever Afters".

Tessa has never been the hero of her own story, even though she's written plenty of heroes and happily ever afters in her writing. But she's about to start a new school at a prestigious academy dedicated to cultivating fine minds and she's really nervous. Because she's never shared her writing with anyone besides her best friend before and now she's going to have to read aloud to a classroom of gifted students. And worse, her words are gone. Vanished. Blimp.

Her best friend devises a scheme to get Tessa her words back. A simple list, to make Tessa the heroine of her own story, just like the women in her romances. And she knows just the boy to be her hero: suave, sexy fellow writer Nico. There's just one problem. Despite his interest, Nico already has a girlfriend.

I mean...it's basically Mean Girls and Pretty in Pink but with some rearrangements.

In this reiteration, Kady—excuse me, Tessa—is newly arrived from Northern California with her family. She has a mom, a dad, and an older brother named Miles who is disabled. She's a regular girl, except that she's struggling to fit in and she just wants to get her words back and prove that she's good enough to be in the school.

Like Kady, Tessa goes a little too far in her efforts, until the lies wrap around themselves and she loses herself in her efforts to get the boy.

In this case, the boy is Nico, handsome and eerily similar to one of her main characters (a character who predates her meeting him). And Nico is really into her, despite the fact that he has a girlfriend and his friends are kinda racist. However, Tessa enlists her new friends (not Nico's friends) in getting her man to regain her words, and things go progressively downhill. Soon, she's pretending to write in class, submitting old stories to her writing teacher, failing her other classes, lying to her parents to go to parties, ditching her real friends to be with Nico's friends, and drowning in a sea of imposter syndrome.

All throughout the cringe-fest that is Tessa gunning after a boy who is already in a committed relationship (admittedly, the boy is leading her on, so he does bear fault) in a way that is rewired to be progressive and fun and girl-powery, is her growing relationship with Sam, the boy next door.

Sam is wears Hawaiian shirts and zip-off cargo pants (a thing I thought died in 2004), is goofy, an amazing baker, and doesn't treat Miles like he is an alien. As Tessa gains ground on Nico, she finds herself pulled towards Sam, but doesn't she really want the attractive, popular boy instead?

Of course, everything implodes because of course it's going to implode. Tessa is a teenage girl, not a master spy capable of spinning lies and whatnot. And in the aftermath, Tessa finds her self-worth, and finds the strength to regain what she's lost. Her integrity. Her friends. Her words. Herself.

Overall, it's sweet and adorable (despite my words of DOOM), and hits the notes of the desperation of writer's block and growing up really nicely.

There are insightful critiques on the 80s teenage romances, solid representation of having a sibling with disabilities, the realities of loving ice cream even though it makes you have nasty farts, the give and take of friendship, and picking yourself back up after you've pretty much self-imploded. And also commentary on what is art, and what making art means in a school filled with preternaturally precocious and gifted children. Particularly when that art is genre writing and not literary fiction.
I think there's something to be said for making art just to make you happy. Not to win awards or impress others or get the attention of your parents who can be a little clueless at times. But art for art's sake. Art for yourself.


I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review

I loved Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant. It’s a sweet story full of character development and growth. I really enjoyed the main character, Tessa, and her pursuit of a happily ever after. While the book was cute and fun to read, the author also addressed components of life that can be changing for teenagers - fitting in, anxiety, relationships, friendships, and academic pressure. Overall this was a delightful read, and I would certainly recommend it.

I received a digital ARC of Happily Ever Afters from the publisher via NetGalley, which did not affect the content of my review. All opinions are my own.

Sixteen-year-old Tessa Johnson loves writing stories. More specifically she loves writing love stories. The only person who is ever supposed to see her stories is her best friend - and number one fan - Caroline. But when her family moves hundreds of miles away from her hometown Tessa is admitted to Chrysalis, a prestigious art school, and feels like her writing isn’t good enough to share with the “serious” writers in the creative writing program. In the face of that fear her words vanish. With long-distance help from Caroline, she launches a plan to create a real-life happily ever after with handsome classmate Nico and get her words back. But what happens if the happily ever after she has planned isn’t so happy after all?

Tessa the dorky, self-conscious, boundary pushing teenager that readers of almost any age will recognize. Her struggles with writer’s block and navigating long distance friendship and the self doubt and anxiety that comes with teenage life are realistic. For all that realism, the plot is largely predictable and there is an overall lack of character development. Adult YA readers or those who read widely in the genre will see a lot of Tessa’s misadventures coming a mile away. Still, readers looking for a heart warming story that’s as much about falling in love with yourself as it is about finding a happily ever after will find a lot to enjoy in this debut.

3.5 stars

Sigh. I had high hopes for this book, but it let me down a little. I'm having a hard time articulating what exactly I didn't like about it, but it just left me feeling slightly disappointed overall.

One thing that bugged me is that I feel like everything was wrapped up too quickly. Tessa spent the whole book doubting herself, trash talking herself (that in and of itself bothered me--she was SO negative all the time!) and then within two chapters entirely changed her outlook on herself.

I was also disappointed by the ending. I don't mind an open-ended book, but I feel like this was TOO open-ended. I wanted a little more resolution at the end of Tessa and Sam's story.

I just wanted more from it, overall. I wanted Tessa to be more open about her issues with her parents. I wanted more from Tessa and Sam's relationship. I wanted more examination about why Tessa had writer's block (the phrase itself never came up in the whole book, which I thought was weird). I wanted more development of her writing teacher instead of a one-off halfhearted offer to help her. I was just left unfulfilled by the end of this book.

I know many pe0ple have enjoyed this book, and I don't want to deter people from reading it because of my review, but I was left feeling disappointed overall. I do wish the author success with her debut, and I hope that it finds its intended audience. I will most likely be buying this for my school library, though, because I definitely see it as something that my students will enjoy!

This is a sweet, fairly light read, though its discussion of race and disability is very forthright, which is great. Tessa is a fairly rounded character, though sometimes her voice and love of numerous fandoms (including a LOT of Harry Potter) can be a bit grating. Her brother Miles, who has cerebral palsy and other physical and developmental disabilities, seemed like a similarly well-developed character, and their joking sibling relationship was one of the highlights of the book. (I cannot fully speak to how solid the disability rep in this book is, though, as I do not have experience with these disabilities. I will say that Miles has a few meltdowns in the novel, including brief discussion of a past meltdown where police were called but luckily did not harm him.)
As for the rest of the book, I LOVE a book with insta-new-friends, all the more if they’re a pair of fast-talking, well-dressed wits, so Lenore and Theodore were very fun.
The ‘dorky’ potential love interest/next-door neighbor, Sam, is a fabulous baker so...I’m not at all sure why he’s Tessa’s central love interest from that revelation. As many reviewers have already mentioned, this book features mouth-watering food descriptions. It should come with a warning, since it made late-night reading with no snacks a serious struggle. In some ways, the way some characters discuss food reminded me of ‘With the Fire on High’--they were that evocative and poetic.

Why I liked it:

The characters are incredibly well-developed. I felt like they were each real people who had backstories, even if they were just side characters. It would have been easy for some of the characters to fall into stereotype territory, but each of their personalities were written so strongly that it just didn't happen.

I also appreciated that all of the trauma and emotion that Tessa expresses on the page: as a part-time caregiver to a sibling with disabilities, as the daughter of parents who can't always give her their full attention and occasionally ask a lot of her, and as a black girl in a predominately white town. I appreciate that we see a range of what allyship could look like and what it most definitely should not look like.

What I would like to change:
I wish there had been more justice for the wrongs that were done to Tessa. So much of her inner conflict involves swallowing injustices that I wanted there to be more growth in that department for her, unrelated to her relationship with a boy. I know that justice is rare in the real world, but I like an unrealistic dose of it in my fiction.

Reading this book as just like watching a teen rom-com from the 80s and I just ate that right up.

Tessa loves to write romance, and when her family moves, she gets into a prestigious arts school where she is going to be a part of their writing program. Tessa has never actually shared her writing with anyone but her best friend, but she's excited to write and have this new experience. But the first day, she freezes up and finds herself not being able to write. Anything. The solution her best friend comes up with? Have a real life romance that will inspire her to write. And Nico, the gorgeous guy in her writing class, is the perfect target.

The premise of this book was so fun, but this book also explores a lot of themes and shows just how messy and hard life can be for teenagers. One of my favorite parts of this book was Tessa's older brother, Miles, who has disabilities. Tessa talks a lot about growing up with him, how she deals with other people's opinions of her brother, and how other people treat him. I loved how he was in the book a lot, along with Tessa's parents, and how Miles was important when it came to her friends, especially Sam.

When I say this book was messy, I mean that Tessa makes some very messy decisions that felt so real when it comes to teenagers. She makes mistakes, has a love triangle, messes up with her best friend, and lies to her parents because she just doesn't know what to do and doesn't want to disappoint them. Her decisions became frustrating, but she was making mistakes that she had to make in order to face the consequences and learn and grow from what she does.

I really loved the setting and premise of this book, as well as everything Tessa went through. I was definitely rooting for a specific romance and I really loved the whole journey Tessa went on to find her words and find herself.

Happily Ever Afters has been one of my most anticipated reads since it was first announced. I so wanted to love this book, and I'm so disappointed to say that I didn't. I love the premise of a romance writer teen trying to break her writer's block by creating an IRL love story for herself. I was shocked when I started reading the book and realized that the main plot revolved around the main character actively trying to pursue someone in a long-term relationship. There was no mention of this in the marketing or the synopsis, and I'm really surprised that this was such a huge part of the story but was not mentioned anywhere.

Again, there are definitely things I liked in Happily Ever Afters: the main character was dorky, anxious, and relatable. Plus, I loved hearing the descriptions of her outfits and the little bits of her romance writing we got. And I of course loved the diverse cast: the main character Tessa is a Black biracial girl and her BFF is Filipino-American. There were numerous other characters of color and a couple of queer supporting characters. Tessa's brother is also disabled. I really did love Elise Bryant's writing style and I will definitely look forward to reading her future works.

Ultimately, the plotline of Tessa trying to steal another girl's boyfriend made it really hard for me to like Tessa or root for her. Her behavior was repeatedly justified by phrases like "their relationship isn't THAT serious" or "his girlfriend is awful" or even "there's no shame in going after what you want." I think what bothered me the most was that the love interest's girlfriend, Poppy, was villanized throughout the whole book--it was framed as though she was being mean to Tessa for no reason, when really, she was being mean because someone was actively trying to steal her boyfriend!

There were so many things that I did like about Happily Ever Afters, so I am giving this book 3 stars. I really enjoyed Elise's writing and will definitely be purchasing this book for my library and reading her future work. I would likely recommend this book to teen readers with caution. It is worth noting that this book also had a wealth of Harry Potter references, which can be triggering for some readers due to JK Rowling's anti-trans stance.

This is a really fun, easy read that deftly includes a few more serious topics such as Tessa's brother's disabilities. Mostly, however, the reader can sink in and enjoy the obvious love triangle with the development of the guy who is clearly perfect for her as opposed to the one she is trying to make fit. I loved the school setting but felt frustrated by her writer's block that kept her from fully participating in this wonderful school. And although it is clearly a major part of the story, I was VERY frustrated by Tessa not believing in who she is. Although I can totally relate. Particularly annoying when she chooses the wrong boy, mostly out of convenience. It takes her awhile to get a backbone and know who she really is, but then it's very satisfying! One somewhat minor subpoint that made this book more enjoyable for me was that Tessa's white mom had taken the time to learn how to style her biracial daughter's hair. I've read a few books with Black characters in white families where the characters have to find other Black people to help with their hair and I am always annoyed that the white parents haven't done what they should to nurture their child.

A very sweet read that errs on the younger side of YA (which is wonderful as we need lots more of those for the 13-14 set!) about first love, family, identity and race. I can see a lot of fledgling writers and bookworms falling for Tessa. Perfect for fans of books like To All the Boys I've Loved Before!

Man. I really wanted to love this book because the cover and summary sound so good! Unfortunately, the hype got the best of me and this was a meh read for me.

I want to start off by saying that I absolutely adored the representation of race and disabilities in this book. It was fantastic, and handled so well. It’s nice to see a disabled character being represented, as I feel like we don’t see that much in YA.

I did not like our main character Tessa. She was selfish and annoying. She was so focused on this perfect guy and this happily ever after ending that it drove me nuts. She neglected her friends because of it and became obsessed. I mean I get it, we all want a fairy tale ending but girl chill. I get that she was under a lot of pressure from her parents but she could have been so much better. She did grow towards the end but it felt rushed.

The romance is super cute and precious. The ending was abrupt to me and left an open ending, which made me mad because I wanted to know what happened between our main character and this love interest. It’s a stand alone but it has a lot of opportunity to become a duology or even companion novel series.

Overall, not a horrible read but not the best.

“We used to call it special needs before a teacher pointed out that his needs aren’t special. They’re just his.”

Happily Ever Afters is a great read for those who love Jane the Virgin with loads of black girl magic. Elise's characters are very diverse and she does well to explore various types of relationships between siblings, interracial families, long distance relationships between best friends and persons with disabilities. I totally related to Tessa's anxiety and fear of criticism, and her character's internal narration and description of her emotions feel so real and authentic. Teens are going to love this book!

Tessa is an aspiring romance author. She’s just moved cities and gotten into a creative arts school-Chrysalis. As she navigates how to handle life with her brother with disabilities in a new neighborhood and gets the worst case of writers block she’s ever had, her best friend suggests that she needs to experience her own love story to get back on track. The question is- will she fall for the sweet pastry-chef neighbor across the street, or the rich boy in her creative writing class who looks like he walked straight out of one of her stories (and has a girlfriend)?

This book is super cute and well-written; however, I didn’t love the ending and I felt like the last bit was rushed. It’s not one you can’t put down, but a cute story nonetheless!