As much as I wanted to love this book, it just didn't hook me the way that I thought it would based on the blurb. Truly, I feel like I could have read just the blurb and wouldn't need to read the rest of the book to know where it was going to end up. Which like, considering it hit the 400 page mark, I thought that it would have had so much more than what it ended up offering. I feel like there was SO MUCH going on at the beginning of the book, while also not much happening if that makes any sense? I feel like a lot of the beginning could have been cut down and it would have made this book so much better. I also wasn't too much a fan of the main character which could be where my main qualms come with this book. For me, she was unlikable to the point where I didn't really want to root for her at all. There have been books where I have HATED the main characters, but that was the point. You were meant to hate them. With this, that isn't the case. I didn't want to dislike Bella, but I did.

I thought It was a read but i found it quite boring. I was always losing my place, zoning out, or I couldn’t keep my eyes open. It just didn’t hit right for me. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.

Although this was a cute read, I found myself completely zoning out during parts of it. For the length of the book, I was hoping for more depth, more entertainment, really just something to grab my attention. Thankfully by the end all the loose ends were tied up.

If you are looking for a cute read, this is a good choice.

Rounded up to a 3.5

I see what Luci Adams was trying to do with the protagonist, Bella Marble. She’s sweet and insufferable all at once LOL. She’s also very relatable, which is why I decided to read this book. Yeah sometimes she’s unlikable, but she feels flawed and human.

Where this book falls short for me concerns the premise for Bella’s novel. I suppose it would’ve taken away from the plot if she realized she didn’t have to live what she wrote. I kept waiting for something like that to happen but it never did! I admire Luci Adam’s commitment to really put Bella through some things in order to make her grow.

There’s a wholesome message that really hit me in the gut wrapped up in this story. I like the humourous touch, I was very amused and even laughed out loud.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. I didn't finish this novel. The opening of this with sex was enough to shut down any desire to read this. Other reviewers commented on the protagonist acting slutty but wasn't prepared for the opening. Not for me.

This is a first time read for me by this author so I didn't know what to expect when I picked this up. I found this to be a fun and enjoyable read. It's a cute romcom and good for a light-hearted read to just relax on a cozy evening. Bella is single and watching all her friends move on and she can't help but feel a little left behind. Her life is not what she imagined it to be, and she is going to do something about it. Through this fun and cute read, we follow Bella on her journey as she tries to find herself and what makes her happy.
This was a feel-good story with interesting characters and plenty of laugh out loud moments along the way. Glad to have had the opportunity to read it!
I received a complimentary copy from Netgalley and am voluntarily leaving my review.

I struggled to follow the plot of this book. Some of the parts we enjoyable, but others I just really struggled to stay engaged. I didn’t feel a connection to the characters like I would have liked to.

Wow! It was such a refreshing and fun read. I had the best of my times. I absolutely loved the main characters it was so authentically written with gritty and yet quite an engaging writing style. I’m in awe. Absolutely loved it

ABSOLUTELY loved this book. It was such a breath of fresh air to read about a woman taking ownership of her sexuality and having some fun. I loved the idea behind the plot and recounting her dates as fairy tales turned comedy. Even though I sorta knew the ending (because, let's face it - most modern romances have this happily ever after), the payoff was still wonderful. I loved the sexual tension between Bella and the {I won't give away who it is in this review}. And the BANTER - chef's kiss!

As someone who doesn't usually get super excited about modern romances, this one was so much better than the more popular books from Ali Hazelwood and Emily Henry. Thanks so much to the publisher for an ARC of this book - I can't wait to buy it once it comes out!

SPOILERS:
I personally loved that the ending wasn't the typical "girl gets the boy and they get married." I loved even that the author kept it as more of a Frozen lesson where the two friends are each other's soulmates rather than their partners. That really warmed my heart.

Not That Kind of Ever After by Luci Adams
Contemporary Romance
Publication Date: March 14, 2023

Bella has spent her whole life dreaming of fairy tales. Now in her late 20’s she is waiting for her prince to come along. With her best friend set to move out and get married, and her parents divorcing, Bella is struggling to cope. When her best friend’s brother suggests she stop looking for “the one” and on just having fun she decides to write down the tale of a disastrous one night stand on a writing app and ends up going viral.

This book is for all the cynical twenty and thirty something singles out there who are exhausted from the hellish nightmare that are dating apps, tired of scrolling through social media to see their friend post the 400th picture of their wedding from six months ago on Facebook or worse, answering the dreaded “what’s new with you?” question after not seeing someone in years. Nothing. Sleep, eat, work and repeat Karen.

So yes I enjoyed this. In fact I was down right snickering at Bella’s escapades and how she was able to turn the most cringy experiences into fairytales gone wrong. In fact there was a chapter involving Smurfs that left me in stitches.

Bella isn’t always likable at times, She is judgmental (especially in terms of people’s appearances), she’s prickly to outsiders and she makes a lot of obvious mistakes. Yet that is what makes her charming. Her journey to maturity and to discovering that fairy tales do exist, just not the way Disney retells them, was a cute and satisfying journey.

Even though there was a character named Bella, I assure you this book does not contain sparkly vampires or spider monkeys.

Thank you to St. Martins Press for providing an advanced reading copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun read, if a bit dragging in its pace…? I enjoyed Bella’s story, and I can dig a flawed/unlikeable character, but her redemption seemed a bit… clumsy? Absolutely loved the fanfic angle and the meta book-within-a-book, and the fairy tale “characters” were great. This was fun, I would definitely recommend to readers looking for a quirky twist on the romance genre.

I must have done something horrible in a past reading life that ended up with me committing to reading this book. It was awful, and if I hadn’t have felt obligated to finish it to provide a review I would have DNF’d it after the first couple of chapters and some serious ick factor. Bella is twenty-nine, but she’s the epitome of the dippy high school girl with no attention span that Amanda Seyfried plays in Mean Girls. A publishing agent she meets tells her that the protagonist in her stories is a piece of work, and as self-absorbed as she is, she’s all proud that the agent can separate her character from her as the author, despite the fact that she is in fact her own character. When she has success writing about her dating experiences she goes full scale on the easy factor, offering to hook up with guys so she can write about it, despite accusing one of her dates of doing the exact same thing. She’s hurtful to the people who care about her, and just can’t quite seem to understand why they have rain on her parade by having lives with problems of their own. And inevitably, what I figured was going to happen early on happened, but it felt weird and awkward because the author hadn’t built up to it at all. And she still acts like a complete and utter s**t. Is anyone familiar with the original fairy tales that didn’t end so well before they all got Disney-fied? Yeah, that would have been an ending that I would have enjoyed way more than the one we were actually given. Read at your own risk, but I wouldn’t recommend it. A copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Bella works as a receptionist for a book publishing company. She'd rather be a published writer. Her best friend since childhood is moving out of their shared apartment in getting married. Bella is struggling and, on a whim, decides to post a story she wrote making a fairy tale of a terrible one night stand. An inventive idea for lovers of rom-com books.

Unfortunately I had to put this book down a quarter of the way in. I was turned off by reading about the main character getting drunk often and partying and wanting to just get laid.
I also wasn't connecting at all with the character and found her to be a bit annoying.

I received an e-ARC from NetGalley and this was a fun Romance but it wasn’t really a 4 star read for me.

Our main character Bella is an aspiring writer looking for her Happily Ever After. When her best friend gets engaged to someone she doesn’t deem worthy of she decides to find comfort in testing out writing for a Beta reading app. She decides to begin writing about her bad dates by alluding them to fairytales which I found to be very witty and creative! We explore events in her life such as friendship breakups (temporary)/divorce/finding purpose.

I didn’t feel this was 4 stars for me because we didn’t get much character development and when we did it felt very rushed. Bella spends most of the book casting judgment and burning bridges and fixes it all miraculously. Her character overall was very unkind and selfish so I would have loved to see her put more effort in rebuilding her relationships and more personal development overall. Marty (who I loved) who is called out in the synopsis is more of a supportive friend most of the book, but not actually a love interest in Bella’s eyes.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC!

Bella is an aspiring writer living in a flatshare in London and trying to find her Prince Charming through dating apps. She continues to meet Mr. Wrong is not having any luck writing and her best friend is moving out to live with her boyfriend. Thus begins Bella's quest to find the right fairytale since she so obviously is in the wrong one. She begins to write about her dating life online and suddenly everyone is reading and can't wait to see what fairytale she'll write next and if she'll finally meet her own Prince Charming. I loved the idea behind this story and I love retelling fairy tales but I just did not like Bella the main character at all for most of the book. She was very self centered and selfish, immature and extremely co-dependent on her best friend. It was really hard to root for her when she was treating others around her so poorly especially her other roommates. While there was a some character development at the end it was not enough for her to be redeemable for me at least. I enjoyed the side characters and like the love interest but again not enough to be very invested in either character. I want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is a new to me author and I have to say I am looking forward to reading more by this author! I loved this book

Book Review
Not that Kind of Ever After by Luci Adams

Fairy Tales and fables - ever little girl dreams of her Prince with a story that begins “once upon a time”

Bella, a struggling writer, has dreamed of her own fairy tale for YEARs… she has put Prince Charming on such a high pedestal that she is blind to everything else. Real life rears its ugly head as her best friend finds her true love and moves out, her parents marriage falls apart, and her roommates are slowly dispersing. It seems every one is discovering their happily ever after but her. So, what to do….
Find a Prince. Fall in love… or at least have an orgasm or two…. And then Write about it…. Fairy tale style!

Tropes
Friends to lovers
Self discovery
Growing up/Adulting
Divorce
Sexcapades


Thoughts
A fun read with a guaranteed happily ever after. Witty banter. Tons of Disney references. Some of the sexcapades seemed a little bit dangerous and extreme - while I get the point the author was making it also conveys irresponsible sexual activity. No judgement here , but…. At times it felt a bit too much. Bella’s “Knight is Shining armour” is never far away , waiting patiently on the sidelines, playing a supporting role in Bella’s wild dating adventures- the perfect potential fictional boyfriend!!
Eventually Bella reconsiders her choices and changes her course with a predictable fairytale ending.

Overall
Fairytales do come true !

Thank you to St Martins press for my eARC in return for an honest review. Opinions expressed are my own.

This coming-of-age story follows Bella Marble as she searches for her fairy tale happy ending. Bella feels that her life is stagnant while everyone else reaches new milestones. She decides to wade through the London dating pool and use the stories as chapters for that darn novel she still hasn't finished. Through a lot of growing pains, Bella learns that she is all she needs for a happily ever after.

I thought this was a cute story and I found Bella to be frustrating but cute and relatable. I felt this book had a lot of potential to showcase a common experience for women in their late 20s.

However, it didn't really dive into her growth. The ending felt rushed and didn't really explore how her perspective had changed. I really wanted her ending to focus on her, but her happiness was still largely tied to other people. Also, it felt like her book was forgotten in the end even though that was a huge part of the plot!

Overall, it was a sweet read and I enjoyed it, but missed the mark a bit for me.

Isabel Marble is looking for her forever husband but she’s having trouble. If and when she goes on a date with a hairy beast named Charles and does everything to be his perfect girl he just wants sex from her and for her to pay the lift back to his flat. To make matters even worse her best friend Ellie is engaged and moving into her own proper apartment with her boyfriend Mark this is why she finds herself relying on Ellie’stwin brother Marty. He’s a veterinarian a womanizer but when it comes to Bella he’s very dependable which even surprises her at times. She also has a riding career that is going nowhere and when she finds out her parents who she thought were together forever or getting a divorce she really doesn’t know what to think. Will things start looking up for Bella it’s her prince charming in plain sight or is the mystery man on the dating at mirror mirror the one she’s been waiting for? I thought this book was adorable and funny but I didn’t like the way Madi and Bella just slept with whoever but that’s just my own personal choice because if you sleep with everybody and then you fall in love what is it you’re really offering them? Again these are my own personal thoughts that’s for the book there were a few moments I found ridiculous but they made me laugh and only added to the happiness the book ultimately brings I thought it was a cute story and I love the way it ended and I also like the way you didn’t know who she was going to end up with I thought that was a nice touch. Although I thought I knew but wasn’t sure. I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.