This book was a different kind of fairy tale and I really did enjoy it. I wasn’t sure what direction Bella was going to or how she was going to act which made me want to read more. In the middle, as we continued to get hook up after hook up, I did start to wonder when the plot would pick up again with a little more thickness and it eventually did. I loved Marty so much and wish there was more of him! I also wanted more at the end. The story ended as soon as the questions were answered, which is good - but what’s next??? Do we get a sequel? Because I want to know what happens as their story progresses! (Don’t want to give spoilers!) what a fun read, it was a refreshing change!

DNFing. Not invested in the story and the book’s rating is so abysmally low on Goodreads that I have no interest in continuing.

*2.75*
This was a decently cute story and I read through it quickly but It didn’t pull me into the story and often found myself drifting away thinking about something else instead of being lost in the story.

Thank you netgalley and st martins for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Not That Kind of Ever After was not for me, but I think plenty of other romance readers will enjoy it. Sometimes, too much of a good thing is truly too much and this was the case for the steamy content in the book.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

This rom com grabbed me instantly and felt very relatable! I finally feel seen! It's hard to be the single friend who watches all your friends "moving on" with their lives and you feel a bit left behind despite kissing all the frogs. Having your best friend suddenly have a different best friend is not a hurt that goes away easily. It also wasn't totally obvious where the story was going the whole time, so it was fun to go along for the ride trying to figuring out what Bella would do. I wish we had an epilogue (or maybe a sequel) so we get a little more of Bella's happy ending.

I think this book will be a hit with all the late 20s/early 30s single people who feel a bit disenchanted by romance and dating apps.

Oh My Gosh I sure hope I was not like Bella when I was younger. She is a bit of a mess. Bed hopping, all wrapped up in herself and oblivious to even her best friend's life. She wants to be a writer but spends her day on her phone. That is so 2022 isn't it. The parents in crisis was not about her either though her take on it was self centered. The ending was nice and not expected. I had to keep reading to see what crazy thing she would be up to next. An entertaining story.

I liked the book, but when it was over I felt like I couldn’t remember much! I need to re-read but overall I thought it was good. It’s hard to find a new take on fairytales and I thought this was a great attempt.

Woah, talk about a STEAMY mix of fairytales! I LOVED this book for a lot of different reasons. One is that I can totally relate to the main character's, Bella Marble, complex view of dating. Of course you want to find your Prince Charming (but do you really?), but honestly how many frogs do you have to kiss to find the one that will transform in front of your eyes? When Bella decides to listen to her friends' advice by just having fun, she finds herself in quite unique situations. These are just too juicy not to share, so Bella starts posting to a website where authors can post one chapter of their writings for others to read. it is fairly anonymous, so it leaves the freedom for Bella to talk about her life uninhibited, If she gets likes and follows along the way, that is even better.

I also loved that this twist on the idea of a happily ever after wasn't based on just one fairytale. There MULTIPLE fairytales involved, and each one got steamier and steamier. I have a particular favorite one Luci Adams uses, but I won't spoil it for other readers by divulging which tales are included.

Luci has created an engaging, funny, and sometimes heartbreaking book that conveys what it is like to be in your 20s and 30s when it seems like everything is changing, and you just can't get a break, Oh, and a lot of sexual awakening isn't a bad thing either. So, grab this book, hop into the land of dreams coming true, and enjoy!

This book follows Bella as she navigates many life changes at once - her best friend getting engaged and moving out, a horrible dating life, new flatmates, and her parents divorcing. She decides to start writing about her dating mishaps and goes viral. This is a journey of self discovery - and while it’s predictable, sometimes a light, predictable book is exactly what I need!

This would be a good beach read - very typical “chick lit” book - comforting, a bit funny, some romance, and easy to read.

3.5/5 stars for me ⭐️

Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts!

This book just wasn’t for me and honestly I really wanted to like it because the cover was pretty and blue (yes, I have a bias based on color).

The first chapter of this book made me instantly dislike it. I’m not a fan of women or girls lowering their standards or themselves just to achieve something in life. Same for men too, in all fairness. We should all be confident in our choices and respectful of other’s choices. Our main character, Bella lowers her standards so many times for the most unreasonable justifications and I felt like yelling and just DNFing this book.

Bella just didn’t work for me as a main character. There were some parts where I could sympathize and relate with but for the most part I couldn’t. She was always jumping to conclusions, judgmental, selfish and ungrateful. I didn’t like her decisions and when she compared herself to others I also didn’t like that. Everyone has their own story to write; we shouldn’t compare ourselves with someone else’s story.

The rest of this book flew by in confusion for me. There were so many characters mentioned but none expanded on or developed enough that I could understand the relationship. They also weren’t very helpful in progressing the story and I’m not sure I made the connection on their relevance to the story. The plot and ending just didn’t work for me. It felt a bit rushed and all over the place by trying to connect everything without any real meaning or flow.

Overall this was an okay book but nothing too memorable for me. It has a lot of sex scenes that I felt it didn’t even need. The romance was okay and it did have a happily ever after which was sweet.

Received electronic advanced copy from netgalley for an honest review. Lets start with the blurb basically tells you the story.

So I am a sucker for fairytales so of course the title pulled me in. But sadly I just didn't relate to the FMC.. Bella was in such a desperate state for her fairy tale she took her friends and strangers for granted, And every time I thought she would redeem herself, She would just revert to her self centered ways. So much so it was hard to wrap my head around how she eventually gets her happy ending.

Another reason I had a difficult time with the story was there were a lot of characters but not a lot of back story so it took away from the enjoyment of what was a good premise.

Although I did struggle to get through it. It was still a lovely story and would like to read more books by this author.

Everything that Bella Marble counted on is crumbling. Ellie, her best friend and roommate, is moving out to live with her boring boyfriend. Bella's "perfect" parents are divorcing, and her dream job in publishing is going nowhere. But instead of dealing with each situation with acceptance, grace, and maturity, Bella chooses to blame, complain, and act irresponsibly.

This is the first book by this author, and I applaud her cleverness in embracing a fairy tale theme, as evidenced by the stories Bella writes about her one-night stands. But I would have appreciated a little more depth in the character of Bella, to make her more likeable. Also, Bella unnecessarily risks personal danger by seeking out these one-nighters, but there are no apparent consequences.

The debut author definitely has talent, and I look forward to seeing how her style and content matures. I would love to see more expansion of the romantic relationship and more development and redemption for her main character.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and provide an honest review of this book.

The premise of this book is hilarious, and the writing is quick and witty. It reminded me of Sophie Kinsella, which, trust me, is a HIGH compliment.

My issue is with the main character, Bella. I know we want our romance heroines to be relatable and real, but she was just so selfish for 90% of the book. It was hard to root for her when she was so unkind to everyone around her.

But I would definitely read this author again.

Thank you to NetGalley, SMP, and the author for the eARC in exchange for my review.

Usually, a romance inspired by fairy tales can be cringey. This one wasn't at all. The different princess tropes were humorous, realistic, and one of the least important parts of the book. Bella's relationships took priority over her one-night stands and we got to watch as she realized what was important and what wasn't. I knew she would find her prince charming at the end, but I'm glad that she came through her ordeal knowing she isn't a princess.
I am grateful to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

From the opening scene, I wanted to scream at Bella. Bella was trying to find her true love and made poor choice after poor choice. I found that Bella was a shallow self-centered individual who thought little of her friends. Marty and Ellie were two characters that kept me reading the book when I got so aggravated with Bella and the choices she was making.

The only redeeming parts of this book was Marty and the fact that Bella finally realized that she was being ungrateful to everyone in her life. I was rooting for Marty and Bella.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you St. Martin's for the review copy of Not That Kind of Ever After from Luci Adams (via NetGalley). This is a like but not relate it kind of book; a women's fiction that maybe works better for a reader who can relate to the messy chaos of Bella's life. 3 stars for me, 4 stars rounded up because I think in fairness this book achieved every goal Ms. Adam's had in terms of developing a character and her story and creating a world that I think is relatable for many readers (strong writing as well).

I loved the writing, Luci Adams did draw me into Bella's world very effectively and it simply was that after a bit I just felt less interested in where the story was going, questioning a lot of how people treated each other in this story.

Overall, I was confused about the direction of the story, was it about Bella becoming a writer? Finding her HEA? Growing up (mean that nicely)? working out her friendships? The book could be all of these things and was but Bella just felt a little too self focused and surrounded by equally unfocused and at times selfish people, excluding Marty who was described as being uncaring but was actually the one who seemed most available (perhaps indeed the point...). I also struggled a bit with background characters' descriptions, such as the new German neighbors as it felt a bit stereotypical and unfair.

It all came together but I was often surprised at how disconnected Bella seemed and how perhaps a lot of her relationships weren't as strong as they should have been.

My notes should be taken with a grain of salt, I think that the writing and development of the story are strong, I really did like Luci Adams' style and it seems like maybe more wrong book/wrong time/bit of the wrong audience in me. I will still recommend this, I think there are a lot of readers who will click with this story.

Recommended for fans of The Lifestyle, Sophie Cousens, and similar book. I think Gen Z readers (readers in their 20s) will in particular find resonance with Bella's story.

Bella Marble’s life isn’t what she expected or wanted – she is still working as a receptionist at her publishing company rather than having her own novel published; she is still single; her best friend Ellie is moving out to live with her boring, unworthy fiancé; and her parents, whose perfect love story makes her believe in love, are getting divorced. When Ellie’s brother Marty recommends Ellie look for someone she wants to spend the night with rather than the one, Ellie decides to take his advice since her current strategy obviously isn’t working. When she posts a fairy-tale retelling of a horrible one-night stand on a storytelling app, her pen name B.Enchanted goes viral, and she chases the high of each next chapter. When her life ends up more of a mess than ever, she has to figure out what is most important to her in life and what she’s willing to sacrifice to get it.

Yeesh, this main character was a hot mess, easily one of the most selfish characters I’ve read about. While I was interested to see how she would spin her one-night stands into a fairy tale, it was hard to root for her. The story had a quite memorable opening line but did not hold up to that standard as it went on. Marty was my favorite part of this book; other favorite moments would be the scenes where Bella meets other authors from the storytelling app she uses. Overall, this book just wasn’t for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book.

This book had SO MUCH POTENTIAL which makes it disappointing to give only 2 stars. I thought Bella's antics in hooking up with guys and writing stories comparing her sexcapades to fairy tales quite original and funny. I laughed out loud quite a few times.
But there are two major problems.
First, it is super unclear who the love interest is. I almost think it would be better to make it Bella's journey to self-acceptance rather than love because the connection with Marty was unremarkable. For how long the book was, you'd think there'd be time to develop the relationship between Bella and Marty further.
The bigger problem, is just how unlikable Bella is. She's a shitty friend, treats people poorly, and complains CONSTANTLY. I had 0 sympathy for any of her qualms because she whined so much.
This book is passable at best, but rather forgettable.

The premise for this story is a really cute one. The main character Bella works herself through a series of modern fairy tales as she looks for her Prince Charming. As she works her way through writing up her dating encounters as fairy tales, she finds a website called B Reader where authors can upload chapters of their books to share with fans. As her fairy tales get more interesting her following on the site grows, but her personal life and friendships start falling apart. Bella needs to decide how her story will end, and what her fairy tale ending will look like. The idea was cute, and I loved the side characters in this book. I did struggle to connect with the main character which is why I took a star off. I found Bella to be pretty selfish and immature for 85% or more of this story, and I found myself wishing her journey to grow up started much earlier in the book. Otherwise, a very cute story. I received an ARC and this is my honest review.

NOT THAT KIND OF EVER AFTER by Luci Adams is a frothy, humorous romance about career and relationship goals in a time of Wattpad (B-reader), social media, dating apps, and trying to have it all by 30.

Bella’s wanted The One and A Wedding since she was little. Now it feels like everyone, including her bestie, is coupled up. Or at least coupling. And she’s out in the cold. So she turns to writing about her string of one-night stands/dating disasters and publishing them online with callbacks to fairytales. This is great until she shifts from looking for a great guy to date to seeking out sensational stories that she can relate to fairytales, all to please her fans, and wrecking her friendships in the process.

This is a delicious umbrella cocktail of a read - sweet but with a kick. Lots of humorous takes and witty banter but some serious looks too at the inequalities of dating expectations between men and women.