This book was a bit hard to get into at first but once you’re in, it’s quite captivating. The characters are cute and it’s a fun but a bit obvious story to read

It’s a cute rom com with a great friendship and coming of age all wrapped up in a modern twist. It ran a bit long but was still a fun fast read.

3.5 rounded up.

This was a lovely story about a girl trying to find her Prince charming, but ends up finding herself.

Thank you to net galley for this ARC in échange for an honest review.

Not That Kind of Ever After is definitely "Not your typical RomCom". I think this is why it took me a while to actually start enjoying this book. It's not a RomCom like you would expect. Imagine if Bridget Jones finds whattpad.
The witt and banter is 5⭐️!
I like that the book is realistic and is not written sugarcoating a love story. If you go into the book, not expecting the typical romcom formula you'll enjoy it more. It will take you a while to get there, mostly the first 3rd of the book is a little slow but it gets better from there.

*Spoilers after this*
Martys personality and conversations are what kept me going mostly.
On the other side Bella is a character that can be relatable up to a certain point. Caught in the reality of a 9-5 job, roommates, dating apps with dates going terribly wrong etc.. The thing is that she comes off as extremely selfish, self centered and immature to the point of being predictable. She is surrounded by great side characters that could easily be more interesting than her. There were points where I wanted to read more maybe about Diego or what happened to quiet Dave and even how Ellie fell in love with Mark. The high
This being said, it took one drunk night for her to do a 180 and all of the sudden she had an epiphany out of nowhere and now she was another person altogether. This is actually the point where the book finally got me hooked, mind you it was already 50% of the book.

I went through different feelings and emotions reading this book, but after finishing it I did like it.
Give it a try, and see for yourself.
Thanks St. Martin’s Griffin and Netgalley for the ARC!

I requested to read and review this book for free from St. Martin Publishing Company. This story is not your typical romance book. The author Luci Adam's has created a different versions of a romance. Bella is looking for Prince Charming. But can Prince Charming really make you happy ? Is there such thing as a Prince Charming or is there just a lot of frogs. How many frogs do you need to go through to find Prinxe Charming. Bella, Marty and Ellie all have their things to go through to realize what they need to know. Sometimes there is bumps in the road and the ones that stand beside you are the ones that count the most. This is for a mature reader and can be read anywhere.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC! It was tough to get through this one, it was hard to keep my attention for some reason. It was okay, nothing special but a quick read if you push through.

Not That Kind of ever after is a mash-up of a fairy tale retelling that warms the heart.
Bella is a secretary at a publishing firm and really she dreams of being a writer, as a hopeless romantic, she is searching for her Prince Charming: but it seems like all the men she meets are the toads.
This book gave me a lot of Bridget Jones Diary & Sex and The City energy. Very flirty, very honest and a little chaotic. The main character Bella is sweet, if not a little much, but I think that is why we are able to like her so much.
This book is highly creative, nearly addictive and one could argue that it may put some of our own dreams into perspective.

I enjoyed this book very much. I liked the ideal of fairytale romance. I liked how it was weaved into her everyday life and the ones around her as well. I don't think the swear words were necessary at all. I see a sequel coming in the future for Matthew and Belle.

This book started off with a bang – literally. We meet Bella Marble mid-disappointing sexual encounter, where she’s stuck trying to justify the less-than-pleasant experience with the hope that, after the deed is done, her and her date will go on to cuddle, chat, and discover that they’re the loves of each other’s lives. When things don’t turn out the way Bella imagines, Bella finds herself taking her best friend’s brother’s advice to not take finding, “The One,” so seriously. Bella signs up on a new dating app, Mirror Mirror, and starts chronicling her dating adventures online, where she quickly gains a huge following hanging onto her every escapade. While Bella feels empowered with her new casual dating life, she still longs to find her Prince Charming. When her best friend’s boyfriend proposes, Bella rebels against the idea that he’s good enough for her best friend, and all of the drama in her life comes to a climax when she realizes that her bitterness towards her friend’s boyfriend stems from her own loneliness. Confronting her fears about her own talents, revitalizing her self-confidence, and figuring out what it is exactly she wants from life, Bella also manages to find love – in a place she never expected. Not That Kind of Ever After is a fun, fast-paced, contemporary romantic comedy, and is a must-read for fans of Bridget Jones’ Diary. While I enjoyed the story, I do wish more time had been given to Bella’s romance with the eventual Mr. Right as, while it seemed obvious who she would fall in love with, the two had few in-depth interactions and the romantic tension wasn’t as prevalent as I’d hoped. Overall, a fun read that also had a sweet message about love and friendship.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this! The tropes explored are not my usual. The casual-sex-as-female-empowerment makes me think of the ethereal Julie Delpy in Before Sunset: "I have this awful, paranoid thought that feminism was invented by men so they could, like, fool around a little more." But ultimately the story takes a more neutral stance on sexual behavior, which I loved.

I got invested at the story around the 40% mark. I think everything before that could have been edited down by about half and the novel as a whole would have felt smoother.

The main character, Bella, reminds me of Bridget Jones if Bridget Jones were like 10x messier and 10x less likeable. Most of the time, unlikeable narrators don't work for me in romcoms, because I can't root for them. But thankfully we get character growth and redemption and a "moral of the story," if you will. I like that Bella has to face the fact that being shitty to shitty people is still still shitty (and poor Doctor Isaac who has never done anything wrong ever in his life!).

That said, there were a couple things that bothered me... and I couldn't determine if it was Bella or the author speaking. Quite a few times, Bella insults others' looks and it seemed like the author meant to be funny. That's not cool. There are also a couple moments that made my feminist heart ache--like when Marty admits he "doesn't care" about the women he sleeps with, or Bella calls herself a "fake feminist" because she....likes compliments? Bella, I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Despite those hiccups, I thought the author had a wonderful sense of humor! The writing was genuinely funny without trying too hard. I would be interested in reading more of her work.

This is the first book from Luci Adams- debut novels are fun because you never know what you’re getting into…. But this book was an absolute delight! Kept me guessing the whole time. The characters were charming (except Mark- I’m still not a fan!) and the story was surprising in a way that you don’t usually see in rom cons these days.

Can’t wait to read her next book! 5/5 stars- definitely worth the read.

I will be giving this read a 3-stars solely because it feels the most neutral rating given that I did not finish this title.

I got about a third into this book to confirm that I'm not the right reader for this book. Many others have found this relatable or humorous, and I will admit some of the writing is playful in a charming way. However, this isn't the kind of messy main character that I can sit through an entire book about. I found Bella insufferable and given the genre as well as what other reviewers like me have said, I believe the ending won't completely satisfy the amount of growth I think she needs to make the reading journey worth it.

I'm sure many others will love this title, and I wish the author the best as she continues her career. This one just ain't for me, and that's okay.

I can't wait for more from Luci Adams! I did exactly what you are not supposed to do.. judge a book by the cover. But the cover was so cute! Who doesn't love fairytales and hookup stories!? The humor and romance was exactly what I needed right now! I absolutely fell in love with this book. I read it in one day because I couldn't put it down. Thank God for slow days at work! haha.

Bella's been obsessed with finding Prince Charming, but all she finds are the worst frogs. When everything in her life starts changing, she decides to change up her quest for the fairy tale. Instead of looking for happily ever after, she is looking for her happy for tonight.

The twists to the fairy tales and how she turns that into chapters for a book were really clever. I loved the idea of her taking charge of her sexuality and career in a way that felt empowering. Of course, I think one of the best parts of this story is that Bella is not a perfect character. She is jealous and not always the best friend or person, but that made it feel all the more real. When dealing with fairy tales, it is necessary to give it a dose of reality. Overall, I loved this book!

There was nothing wrong with this book, but there also wasn't anything that really sold me on it. Overall, this felt like a pretty predictable/average romance novel. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but it just didn't work for me this time.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is now one of my all time fav books at the moment! It was just so good and it was a romance but also had some comedy along with it. I loved Marty’s character and every time he would show up I internally screamed hoping they would end up together. This book put me through all the emotions and I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much. I will post my full review on my Instagram account in the next two weeks!

I wanted to like this book.
But i didn’t love Bella. I felt the whole book is summed up
Literally in the summary.
I couldn’t connect with this charter i felt this was a long short story.

3.5/5 (rounded down to 3)

CW: divorce, sexism, absent parent, alcohol consumption, misogyny

I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a free e-ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Life is not going how Bella Marble is expecting. She can’t stand the guy her best friend got engaged to. She’s stuck at a dead end job and not living out her dream of being an author. Most of all, she can’t seem to find her prince charming. After Bella becomes a viral sensation when she starts turning her dating failures into modern day fairy tale stories, she realizes that she has to get out there and live her own happily ever after.

I have mixed feelings about this book for several reasons.

One, I’m not going to lie that Adams’ pacing took awhile to get used to. Adams’ splits this story into seven main parts with several chapters in each part. The seven parts does seem a bit excessive, but I’m able to get over that. However, I felt that some of the chapters were too short. What I mean by that is that you find yourself reading a scene and you think it continues onto the next page, but then a new chapter starts dropping back on the same scene. I feel like in instances like these the chapters could have been combined. By doing so, I think it would make the pacing a bit easier to read and the flow of the book seems more natural.

Second, Marty is the most morally gray love interest I’ve ever read. Like, for real. I mean, having Marty make Bella buy her own pity chocolates seem like a low blow. But at the same time, he does things that shows he genuinely cares about Bella. Near the end of the book, Marty’s not all that bad. But I just can’t get over some of his actions that just make him look like a jerk and I do think there were some other characters that could have been a better match for Bella. At least Marty is self-aware.

Finally, for Bella, I have mixed feelings about how she was portrayed in the book. In general, I love having Bella as MC and I definitely found her to be super relatable. Additionally, I loved Bella’s confidence earlier on in the book and when she gave Henry a piece of her mind, that was truly a highlight for me. However, as the book progressed, I don’t know if I was that big of a fan of how Bella developed during her “fairy tale” encounters.

Overall, Not That Kind of Ever After is a good story, but there were just some flaws with character development and plot structure. Personally, I enjoyed Adams’ writing style and it was easy to get into the plot. I also loved the concept of having Bella recreate these fairy tales into a 21st century dating encounter. Readers who love their fairy tales but want a dose of reality added will enjoy this book, though I wouldn’t recommend it if you're not a fan of morally gray love interests.

I figured this would be another fluffy romance. But I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, there's fluff and romance (and don't get me wrong, I love those), but there's so much more too. I got to watch (read) a woman finding herself, coming to terms with her flaws, who she is and how great she is. In the end, it's not about the romance. I LOVED this one. An amazing debut, and I look forward to more from Luci Adams.

I wanted to love this book, I kept waiting to love this book, and by the last 10% I kinda liked it? Bella was just obnoxious almost the whole time. Very immature and frustrating and the lack of awareness both for herself and others was impressive, but not in a good way. She just seemed emotionally stunted, especially considering her age. I did like the smurfs bit.