This was such a cute, kick-your-feet romcom! Much less spicy than her previous book, I appreciated the growth of our MCs and their ability to finally admit what they want by the end of their story.

I'm having a hard time getting into this one.
I loved the idea, the premise but the banter is too much for my taste. The kind of frenemies vibes wasn't for me. I lose interest in their banter. Too many dialogues.

This book is so charming and fun! I absolutely loved it! I am already a fan of paranormal rom coms, but this one really stood out for me! I really enjoyed the world building aspects of this book! The magic system was so interesting! I also loved the romance between the two lead characters, Cassandra and Seth. I'm not going to lie, after the prologue I was NOT inclined to like Seth, but after a few chapters I couldn't help but fall in love with him. What an absolute cinnamon roll as a hero. And the chemistry between Cassie and Seth was H.O.T. I definitely blushed while reading the steamy scenes. And the banter between the two is top notch. I laughed out loud so many times, I absolutely adored their relationship. I can't wait to read more books set in this world.

2 stars.

I did not like "How to Help a Hungry Werewolf" by Charlotte Stein. I am disappointed because I was really looking forward to it based in its description. This book should have been a young adult novel, especially considering the main characters act like they are 16. There was no reason this book needed to focus on adults because they certainly don't act like it. The spicy scenes feel added at the last minute in an effort to broaden the reading audience. I totally understand why the main character, Cassie, is mad about what her supposed best friend, Seth, did to her in high school. Rightfully so! He fat-shamed her in front of the entire school, embarrassed her, and then ditched her for the "cool kids" while making fun of everything they used to love together. I get it, and I know what that feels like, so I can totally empathize. I don't need to read about it in a romance. It may have felt a little easier to believe if there was a big redemption, but Seth *barely* apologizes. Excuse me??! I did not like these characters. Cassie is SUCH A WHINER!!!! Oh my GOD, I wanted to slap her so frequently. On top of that, she deserves SO MUCH BETTER. She's just supposed to forgive Seth because he needs her help? Because he got hot? I say "F that!," BUT THEN SHE GOES AND DOES IT after complaining about him for over half the book!!! And Seth is *barely* a functioning person. He still doesn't know how to communicate in a basic conversation and she's falling for this dude?!? GIRL WHAT!?!? Baffling!!! AND!! Why are women still writing characters who fall for their bullies and not labeling them bully romances?! There is nothing lighthearted or funny about demeaning people only to turn around and let that person walk all over them years later. Even with the reason given, I was still pįssed off about how Seth treated Cassie. This is my second Charlotte Stein novel, and I have come to the conclusion that she is not the author for me. Despite the cool paranormal premise, I had a difficult time swallowing this book. It drags and drags and drags, and when I felt like it was nearly over, there was still 37% OF THE BOOK LEFT. Nothing happens except talking for long stretches of time. It's plodding and infuriating. I appreciate that Stein writes about plus size characters, but they are almost always bleeding hearts with no backbone who let people trample over them for just one ounce of "love." Contrary to popular belief, you *can* have a good heart and not continue to accept disrespect from those who have wronged you. There are so many wonderful, funny, diverse paranormal romances out there with spectacular characters who have a genuine connection and know how to communicate with one another. Read those instead.

Thank you to NetGalley, Charlotte Stein, and Macmillan Audio for the complimentary ALC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for this review.

"What We Do in the Shadows with the small town feels of Gilmore Girls in this swoon-worthy romance that will leave readers delightfully cozy and hungry for more.

When Cassandra Camberwell returns to her hometown of Hollow Brook to clear out her late grandmother's ramshackle old house, the last thing she expects is Seth Brubaker on her doorstep. Her former best friend was responsible for the worst moment of her high school life, and she can't imagine he wants to do anything but torment her all over again.

Until she unearths the real reason this annoyingly gorgeous beast of a man keeps hanging around: he's an actual werewolf, who's certain she's the witch that will ease his suffering. But Cassie just isn't sure if she can trust him again. So Seth offers a pact: he'll teach her all about her undiscovered magic, and she will brew the potions he needs. No feelings, no funny business, just a witch and a werewolf striking a deal.

Totally doable. Until they get hit with a do-or-die mating bond. And now the heat is rising, in between fights with formers bullies and encounters with talking raccoons. They just have to not give in. Unless giving in just might be the very thing they never knew they always wanted."

I was sold when I found out this is basically Gilmore Girls with werewolves.

Was this book good? Not specifically.
Did I have a fun time reading it? Mostly.
Did both of the main characters also kind of make me want to drink bleach? Also yes.

If you're in the mood for a silly goofy read, this is probably the book for you! I rather unfortunately wasn't for the first 50% of the book. I probably just should have come back to it at a different time, but I kept reading.

I will say I enjoyed the last 50% a lot more because I was in the right mood. It was definitely leaning into the ridiculous very much at that point!

While this book had a very promising premise, it failed to deliver in the execution. This read more like a first draft than a final draft, fraught with pacing and character development issues. Some fun dialogue is all that saves this from being a complete flop.

I think that this idea had potential but it just didn’t work. The characters are supposedly in their twenties but the entire book reads VERY much YA. And that does make the “spice” even more awkward. The dialogue is so awkward. The writing is like a stream of consciousness that doesn’t translate. So many sentences starting with “Because” and “And”. im sure this book for someone, I’m just not sure who.

Let's normalize putting triggers in the description on NetGalley. Not a book I'm actually interested in.

How To Help a Hungry Werewolf is the first in The Sanctuary for Supernatural Creatures Book and is such a cozy swoon worthy romance that has me wanting the second book in the series now. The book drew me in by this amazing cover and the best part of the cover for me was the cute racoon. This was my first time reading anything by this author and I am so glad that I discovered them. The book was well written and I enjoyed all of the characters in this, especially Cassie. I highly enjoyed this book and would recommend this one to any romance reader especially if you like your romance with some spice. Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins Griffin for this ARC read in exchange of my honest review of How to Help a Hungry Werewolf by Charlotte Stein.

Cassandra comes home to pack up her late grandmother’s house and finds more than she expected when her ex-best friend comes calling on her grandmother. Is he sleeping with her grandmother? Ick! Next she finds him breaking into the house, then she finds him in the basement in the middle of the night taking a shape she can’t quite believe. Next thing you know, she’s having to help the bully who hurt her.

Charlotte Stein writes a very funny best-friends-to-enemies-to-lovers paranormal romance. I think it’s the foundation between Cassie and Seth as childhood friends that really makes this work. They have all of these good memories between them. They didn’t have crushes on each other. There was no secret love. They were just quite simply best friends. Until they weren’t.

Seth grows into a really great guy. He owns up to his mistakes and is still the sweet kid she used to know. He still has the same ticks. He acts the same way in response to events. Then there is Cassie who has changed due to his bullying and the rest of the people he hung out with in high school. This makes her a great character to give Seth his “come to J” moment.

Their chemistry is off the charts. Stein writes some amazing foreplay scenes that just involve talking. (chuckle) Holy sugar, Cassie can talk a good game. Stein doesn’t even have to have them couple up because what they do on their own is combustible. (chuckle) This is not to say that the author slouches when it comes to the inevitable. Thank goodness.

I really liked How to Help a Hungry Werewolf. It’s fun and who doesn’t need a little fun with their romance.

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read an arc of this.

I'm super disappointed to have to rate this book 2 stars. I liked When Grumpy Met Sunshine so much that when I saw I could request this, I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, I knew very early on while reading that I wouldn't enjoy this nearly as much as I wanted to. I don't know what happened between WGMS and this. While I thought the writing in WGMS was very good, the writing in this felt juvenile. The character of Cassie was likable, but her inner monologue was immature to me. It left me annoyed a lot. Seth was likable, too, but even he seemed immature. The way the two of them talked was weird to me. It felt disjointed, it didn't feel natural. I did enjoy the personalities of the inanimate objects, and I can't forget about Pod.

I will say to the people who haven't read this yet because of the bully storyline, maybe give it a chance anyway. Things aren't as they seem.

Not going to lie—the days are cooling down, the clouds are rolling in, the beverages are getting warmer, and I am here for it. We are entering into Fall and I thought what better way to celebrate than an appropriately cosy Fall themed romance? How to Help a Hungry Werewolf is one part Practical Magic, one part Gilmore Girls, and a whole funk load of The Southern Vampire Mysteries series. However, while fun and cute, it is not without its faults.
When I think of this novel the dynamic between Cassie and Seth is what stands out the most. Their back and forth bickering and rambling conversations had me laughing out loud. I truly felt like they spoke as if they had grown up together and developed their own abstract cadence, that they then immediately fell back into when they met up again as adults. As someone who has maintained a 20+ year long friendship with my best friend, this is something that one-hundred percent happens, and it was so amusing to see that actually play out in a piece of fiction.
That being said, the need to push that dialogue did end up biting the narrative in the butt. While I liked Cassie as she was relating to Seth, I don’t think I liked her as a character on her own. The fact she held a grudge for so long and couldn’t let go even in adulthood, when the initial slight was so immature and childish, just annoyed the heck out of me. It seemed to me that it was only there to act as a catalyst for further bickering, thereby creating more opportunities for that back and forth dialogue. While the aftermath was fun, the cause was confusing and annoying, and made Cassie just seem really petty and whiney.
Overall, I’d still probably recommend this. It was a fun read even if I didn’t one-hundred percent gel with the protagonist.

The magic in this was absolutely pitch-perfect, and the way Stein built to the reveal of why Seth had been mean to Cassie in high school--not to mention how he'd ended up as a werewolf in the first place--was genius. I'm so exited that this is going to be a series.

I'd classify this book as two soft dummies that are falling fast (fated mates vibes) and fighting it as hard as they conceivably can. The romance is besties to bullies and back again...and ooooh the journey back again is a hoot! Cass is understandably in denial about her burgeoning feelings about the best friend that betrayed her and Seth, bless his himbo heart, is doing his best to win back her trust and be a gentleman. They both quickly learn that you can't fight nature (even with all the witchy potions and tricks) but it's fun watching them try. There is some world building and the author puts her own spin on commonly held paranormal tropes. This is a PNR-lite romance with the heart and humor that Charlotte Stein is known for.

This book was OK to me. I think the story has a lot of potential, but I didn't it as much as I thought I would. The writing felt a little juvenile, and I just don't think it was MY cup of tea. There were a lot of things that were repetitive and some of back-and-forth between the characters was off-putting. The idea of the story is great, I just think it could have been executed a bit differently.

This was an interesting read for me. Looking at the cover I expected a cute paranormal rom com and what I got was a book that took a left turn straight to horny town full of chaotic energy. I did enjoy the best friends turned enemies turn friends and more vibes of the story brought around via forced proximity as well as the unknown witch aspect. I also enjoyed the banter that we did get between the 2 main characters. However with the rapid and chaotic pacing of the story, I missed the tension and build up to the relationship. I do appreciate how Stein handled the fatphobia the FMC was dealing with and how the MMC helped her learn to love herself. I combo read this via ebook and audiobook. I definitely enjoyed the audiobook more and found myself gravitating towards that. I found that the narration by Yael Rizowy fit the overall vibe of the story well. Overall, I was engaged and plan to read the next book in the series.

Quick-paced, cozy, little paranormal romance with friends-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers.

It's a slow burn but the spicy scenes are several pages long and I wish that there had been more of them. As with most slow burns, it takes forever for the characters to get together and the build up is sooo angsty.

I wish that what Seth wrote that Cassie reads (towards the end of the book) was spelled out. The raccoon gets to read it - why don't we get to read it?

The end of the book felt like there should have been more - but this is going to be the first in a series. I am guessing that more will be in the next books?

I want to try and be as kind and constructive as possible in this review, but I really did not like this book. The cover is obviously really great and I was anticipating a cozy fall read based on the description, but that’s not what was delivered. Almost the entire book with just Seth and Cassie at her house talking, so we never saw much of the small town, there were barely any side characters, and the coziness never came through either.

Firstly, I wish the conflict for why they stopped being friends would have been something different. It’s all based on a fatphobic comment Seth made when they were in high school that very publicly humiliated her. It had such a severe impact on her she decides to do homeschooling for the rest of high school and at the start of the book, she still harbors a lot of resentment towards him. It happened while he was hanging out with her high school bullies, and the reasons he has later for why it happened and why he started hanging out with them didn’t really make up for it. Also, he seemingly made amends while they started getting to know each other again, but their whole relationship relied too heavily on their friendship as kids. They didn’t really get to know each other for who they were as adults, which also made their dialogue feel very immature. It was meant to be witty and funny but for me it just felt like I was reading about two teenagers who obviously had feelings for each other but refused to admit it. The way they danced around a topic so much and wouldn’t just come out and say what they were thinking drove me crazy by the end.

Another huge gripe was the way the whole tone of the story felt disjointed. In the beginning, they’re still trying to figure each other out and they were very much just friends. It became sexual what felt like very quickly and while I don’t mind smut (and the smut in here wasn’t all that bad), it just felt very out of place. I wish there would have been a slower build up of attraction or something that made it feel less jarring. If it would have been sexy from the beginning, or more innocent like it was in the beginning I think it would have flowed nicer. Seth was also quite charming, but he stumbled over his words so often and danced around things, yet all of a sudden he's a very dirty talker and confident in bed despite being a virgin? Again, things just felt inconsistent, like it needed another round of edits.

Something I did really like though was Cassie’s magic and how it was explained. It was a very innate type of magic where she just had to listen to her gut and she knew exactly what to do. I also liked how kind and caring she was and that she wanted to help other creatures the way she helped Seth.

Overall, I think this story has good bones, just maybe some more editing to make everything feel more cohesive.