I couldn't get into this book! Just could not keep my interest in at all. I think maybe it would be a better book for a younger crowd. Again, I usually love these types of books and I did read a book by this author years ago and I really liked it. But, I do find my taste changes a bit as I grow older.

Oh my gah!!!!!!! First this author I have read almost all her books. 2nd this one is 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. Do you enjoy vampires?! It's Filipino mythology. That was a nice change because you don't see that often. It is a little more for the youth but I loved it!

The Encanto’s Daughters follows MJ, who is half human and half encanto, as she’s forced to leave the human realm and enter the encanto realm in order to keep her safe and for her to assume the throne. Her father was the king and since he died, he needed to be brought there in order to become queen. What follows is a mystery that she attempts to solve—threats on her life, the mystery of her father’s death and other mysterious deaths as well, and who is behind the insurgents?
I enjoyed the overall storyline but the writing felt disjointed. A chapter would cut off at a critical moment and the next chapter didn’t pick up where the previous one left off. Sometimes, it felt like crucial things were missing from the background of the story. For instance, MJ is supposed to become queen but has no real knowledge of the encanto realm and its history. She’s going to school for half days but her time at the palace isn’t filled with getting her up to speed. Instead, she’s basically left to her own devices and this occasionally leads to her making mistakes. Even though she’s the Princess, her advisors would obviously need to advise her to proper protocol and things like the dances and who is who and stuff but this doesn’t happen. This and other things like it took me out of the story too often for me to ever really get into it.

I liked the idea of this book, but it just didn't pan out for me. Though it had good bones and included a lot of Filipino myth/fable that I didn't previously know, this story just felt a bit meh for me. I loved the pieces of fantastical elements, but I really wanted more world-building than I was given. I feel like this world de la Cruz created deserved much more exploration. For my tastes, the writing style didn't quite fit the YA read I was expecting, but instead came off a bit more middle grade. I read a lot of middle grade, so this would have been fine, but it didn't fit with the age of the MC or the way the tale was structured. It felt like the story was at odds with itself a lot of the time. There was a lot to explore and develop and it didn't feel like there was much in-depth digging. A bit mystery, a bit fantasy, and a bit romance, all three of the genres seemed to get the shaft in development. I don't say this a lot, but I really think this story needed to be a few hundred pages longer to give more nuance and development to the plot. The basis of the story was good and I liked the pieces of tension and relationship development I was given, but I was just left wanting. I haven't decided whether I want to continue the series or not.

A fun romance and fantasy young adult read. This was a fun, quick read that I would recommend to younger readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this incredible book.

Just loved it! Knew i would. It lives up to the hype.

Highly recommend. You will thoroughly enjoy the read!

Five stars!

This is a pretty simple and fun YA fantasy. A teen girl, living a non-magical life in the US, is suddenly drawn back into her father's realm and forced to prepare for a coronation that she isn't ready for. It has all of the good things that make up an excellent YA fantasy. There is intrigue, a murder mystery, some romance, friendship and frenemies. I thought it was cute and definitely entertaining.

This is good for fans of YA fantasy, especially if you like a murder mystery added into your plot.

This book was so much fun to read!! It was full of so many nods to Filipino culture including flora and fauna, language, mythology, clothing, food, and more! As someone who is always trying to learn more about the Philippines and loves fantasy books, this book was up my alley for sure. But yet, had I gone into this knowing absolutely nothing about Filipino culture, I would’ve loved it just the same. The writing was really easy to follow and made the book fly by while I was lost in the story. I’d say it was super addicting and super fun.

The delightful tale of MJ, Sir Lucas, MJ's best friend Nix and an assortment of others, as MJ navigates her way through insurrectionists and witches to becoming Queen of Biringan.

I thoroughly enjoyed this unusual story. Unusual in that, our heroine already knows she is a Princess (half human from her mother, half Sirena from her father) destined to become Queen, because she knows her father was King. She is fully prepared to take over after her father's death but as things progress she and her friends discover her fathers death was no accident. Things move a brisk pace, with a little bog down in the middle as the action becomes slower and more meandering.

Characters are interesting and likeable, the mystery is good, the revelations not bad (but I did figure out who the baddie was pretty quickly) and the ending wraps up all the loose ends satisfactorily. With an epilogue that leaves a door cracked open for a sequel. Which I will be standing in line for.

An engaging and enjoyable fantasy novel! Filipino folklore meets royal intrigue for a fascinating and compelling story! Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book has a lot of high fantasy. MJ is an enjoyable character who is forced into the fairy world when her father dies under mysterious circumstances. Sadly, because she has had little to no interaction with the magical world MJ finds herself lost and relying on friendships to help her navigate already treacherous waters. Overall, in enjoyed this book. I really liked MJ, the first half of the book was amazing, but I started to drift in and out of the story towards the middle. The ending wrapped up everything nicely and will be a great launching point for the second novel. I am excited to see where MJ goes.
Thank you to Penguin Group Young Readers and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.

Absolutely refreshing to read such a diverse book. It’s one I would love for others to read so they can experience something different. It read young, which was expected for a YA!

This was a fast paced fantasy, perfect for a middle years reader to sink into. I loved the Filipino lore woven throughout this world and the ending was perfect to encourage readers to continue on with the series.

MJ is a strong independent character and I the touch of romance was quite innocent. I wonder though, if after a quickly planned kiss to escape being caught, was enough for them to start seeing each other. Add some of the awkwardness and butterflies that come with a new relationship to give it depth would be my suggesstion.

Melissa de la Cruz does it again. I love her characters and stories. Cannot wait for the rest of the series. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

The Encanto’s Daughter had a lot going for it. A girl swept away to another world and learns she is a princess about to be queen. She has to use her magic to prove she is the rightful heir but yet she has not noticed any powers manifest. Beyond that she is trying to solve the murder of her father, the late king.

All of this is interesting to me but for some reason I felt bored and had trouble keeping my attention on the story.

An Asian inspired ya fantasy is great for younger readers. Enemies to lovers and academia themes. I really liked this story, but the conflict resolution was so quick after the buildup. There is an opening to a sequel.

2.5 stars rounded up. On a positive note, the mystery was somewhat intriguing, and the epilogue made me want to read the sequel. On the downside, the story read more middle school/early high school to me. There was a lot more telling than showing when it came to the details. The fast-paced beginning really drew me in but sadly did not keep the pace, and things slowed down.

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a chance to read and review this title*

I was overjoyed to Read this book. Melissa is one of my longtime favorite authors and I love every re-tellings she has written. She is a master at making re-tellings amazing stories. She defines her characters personalities so well and makes them come alive. You actually can believe this world and how it is rewritten. The plot and world is so well built it makes you absolutely crave more. I cannot wait to own this next book and put it with the rest of work on proudly on my shelf.

My first thought upon seeing this book was, Filipino mythology? Sign me up! I've read many books based on mythology and can't get enough of them, but I have yet to read one on Filipino mythology. I was all in from page one. MJ Rodriguez has started at yet another high school, but even before she can finish her first day, she is whisked away to Biringan, a realm where her father was the King, and now that he has passed suddenly, the world is falling into disarray. MJ, who is half human and half Encanto, is to be named Queen, but she first has to attend a school designed to teach her the ins and outs of the land, its customs, and how to act royal because she's been lax on keeping up with her royal studies while in the human world. Oh, and she has to discover what her magical ability is before her coronation in one month or she won't be able to assume the throne, and the country will fall into even more disarray and chaos.

MJ was a likeable character, very down to earth, and the friends she picked up along the course of the story were easy to relate to and develop an interest in. She's going to need every friend she can get when she discovers her father was actually murdered, and whoever did it isn't finished, yet. Will MJ be next?

The world building in this book was beyond phenomenal. It was magical and made you feel like you were right there in Biringan with the characters. The story was interesting, and I enjoyed the twists and turns it took to finally unmask the murderer in the end.

All in all, I enjoyed this book very much and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

5/5 stars.

*** I would like to thank NetGalley, Penguin Young Readers Group, and Melissa de la Cruz for the opportunity to read and review The Encanto's Daughter.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The Encanto's Daughter by Melissa de la Cruz is a first person-POV YA romantic contemporary fantasy set in the Philippines. MJ is the only heir to the recently deceased king of the Sirena Court and the leader of the other magical courts. When she returns to her father’s home for the first time in more than a decade, she also heads to an academy to learn alongside her teenage peers in the courts, only to be met with hostility due to her mother being human and not being in their world for so long. To make matters worse, MJ doesn’t have magic.

There is some Tagalog and Filipino phrases used throughout the book, helping to add to the worldbuilding while also introducing readers to languages in the Philippines. Some of them are translated after, but others rely a bit more on context or are repeated enough that the translations stop. Mambabarang, Encanto, and anting-anting are used fairly often and get explored more as the story goes on. I love it when authors use their native languages or the languages of their families in fantasy because there are such rich worlds of magic and stories all over the world and sometimes English can only provide a word that sort of fits but doesn’t encompass the full context.

MJ and Lucas’ romance doesn’t quite reach an enemies-to-lovers but is more them getting off on the wrong foot. I originally thought the set-up was going to be enemies-to-lovers because Lucas is the knight of a young lady, Amador, who greatly dislikes MJ pokes at MJ’s heritage where she can. MJ also makes a mistake and runs her mouth in class, hurting Lucas’ feelings even though she didn’t know she would hurt him. However, Lucas is a lot more forgiving and it becomes clear that he never actually thought of her as an enemy whereas MJ was more associating him with Amador, so he was guilty by association. It’s more of a classic romance set-up and I was here for it, especially because Lucas does recognize that MJ is trying her best to handle her newfound role.

This is quite fast paced and pretty voice driven. I can tell that Melissa de la Cruz has been writing YA for a while because she knows exactly when to slow down and when to speed up and how to balance the voice with the story that is on the page. I never felt that we were going too fast and I was able to understand what was on the page without getting lost within the voice, which does sometimes happen for me.

I would recommend this to fans of YA romantic fantasy exploring mythology of our world, readers looking for a contemporary YA fantasy set in the Philippines with a story romance, and those looking for a YA fantasy with a murder mystery element.