As a Black woman who works in publishing, Izzy’s struggle at work were a bit too relatable at first. I had to put the book down for a bit because I was genuinely triggered. However, once I got past that I was hooked. I absolutely loved Izzy and Beau’s love story, though I did find the reasoning for Izzy staying in California intially was a bit unbelievable. Still, I was ale to look past thought because Izzy and Beau’s romance was so cute. I wanted a bit more from the end. It did feel a little rushed to me. But overall a very enjoyable read.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, Hyperion Avenue and by #NetGalley. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Wonderfully done and enjoyable. It’s a book club pick in my opinion.

This offering was brought to my attention in a listing of new books by black authors. I choose which books I will read based on the synopsis provided and not by the author's place/country of origin, sex or ethnicity. If the synopsis appears interesting to me I will read the book. So far my batting average is about 95 for choosing good books. I must say this book was right there in the top of my good books to read. This book had a very good plot and enabled me to be a co-subject with the main character. I was able to feel her highs and lows and pull for her eventual success. A great story and great finish.

I would purchase this and all offerings by this author without fear of disappointment. I have rated this book 4.5 stars.

I received an ARC from Netgalley for my unbiased review.

In this subtle retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Jasmine Guillory weaves a beautiful love story of two strangers thrown together in odd circumstances. Izzy is just trying to check in on Beau, an ex-celebrity who has disappeared for a while, who is writing his supposed memoir. In a moment of bravery, she volunteers to go to his house and physically check in on him. Even though they start out rough, they soon grow on each other and find a sweet place of rest within each other.

This adorable romance was so easy to read and digest. Everything down to the sentence structure made it a relaxing and entertaining read. The characters came to life on the page and were easy to bring to life in the mind. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and cannot wait to read another by Jasmine Guillory. Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC!

Isabelle is living every book lover's life. She's working at a publishing house in New York City. But things aren;t always how they seem. She's been in this job almost two years and still feels like she's faking it and isn't sure if anyone thinks she does a good job. She loves her parents but she's tired of living with them. A little bit lost and a lot overwhelmer, Isabelle decides to try and convince a reculse author that now is the time to finally turn in his very late memoir.

After a conference in LA, she drives to Beau Towers house to see if she can convince him to turn in or finish his book. He's a lot standoffish and possibly awful but she refuses to be deterred, and she offers him a pep talk everyday. He accepts her joke for an inviatation and tells her she can stay in the house and thus begins the turn Beauty and the Beast retelling.

I've loved every book of Jasmine Guillory's that I've read. She has a way of writing such honest and truly interesting characters. I always feel like her characters are brand new and fill me with interest and questions, Beau and Isabelle certainly do that, and while you might think like you've figured out their story (you might be right) you definitely want to read this book and dive into the publishing house of Tale As Old As Time publishing and see if Isabelle and Beau are your kind of characters.

I really liked this romantic, non-magical take on "Beauty and the Beast."

Izzy is an overworked editorial assistant--having landed the job of her dreams, just to crash into the reality of working a zillion hours a day, hoping for the promotion that never comes, while being smilingly undercut by ambitious co-workers, and treated roughly by a workaholic boss.

She ends up having to tease a memoir out of Beau Towers, former big star, who sulks in his Santa Barbara mansion (didn't say, but I bet it's in Montecito) for reasons Izzy can't parse.

Guillory is riffing lightly off the cartoon, rather than the old French fable, which is fine--the meat of the story is there, as Izzy and Beau slowly make friends, and then discover one another. Meanwhile there are parental issues to deal with, and also Izzy's workplace issues.

I really enjoyed the characterizations and the flow of the book. I also enjoyed the cover art letting the reader know this is not yet another entry in "the professional world is all white" context. More!

A book about the behind-the-scenes writing process!

Jasmine Guillory does it again with a sweet, cute rom-com in By the Book, a Meant to Be Novel.
This was the modern take on a fairytale, incorporating talking to furniture, a rose-garden, a super sweet, understanding Isabelle (“Belle”) and a cranky but handsome Beau (“Beast”). Izzy works at Tale as Old as Time as an editorial assistant, and is stuck in a rut between her demanding, unsympathetic boss Marta and a co-worker out to undermine her, Gavin. When a former child-star / bad-boy teen client has a memoir due that he hasn’t delivered, Izzy jumps on the opportunity to simply knock on his door and ask if she can help him get on track. Of course, she has to stay at his gorgeous house because it loosely follows Beauty and the Beast, but I’m not sure how believable that is in the publishing world today.

This book was an easy read, and definitely predictable (I mean, it is a fairytale, and we know how those end, right?), but it was the perfect escape and palate cleanser from some crazy suspense novels I have been reading lately – and that break was welcome. Izzy was a little too cheerful for me – she even hinted that she was too harsh at times in what she said to Beau and I was thinking, man if that’s harsh or mean then my remarks would really be bad! Beau grew on you quickly and you knew he had things in his past that he had to work through.

Guillory does a great job at including some modern issues into the storyline, such as inequality at the workplace and race, but does so with ease and care. As a takeaway, this is the definition of a comfort read – her books always leave a smile on your face but I think being a “Disney” novel some necessary angst and real romance was missing. Appropriate for ages 13+. I absolutely loved "The Proposal" and will keep reading Guillory's novels!

Special thanks to NetGalley for this ARC; all opinions are my own!

DNF @ 17%. I'm not loving the writing and the plot feels very contrived and unrealistic. I might try and pick it up again once it comes out, but it's not working for me right now.

This was a great continuation of the Meant to Be series. The main characters were well fleshed out and their relationship had a great build to it. Anyone looking for a great Beauty and the Beast retelling should pick this one up.

Jasmine Guillory does it again! I’ve read all of Jasmine’s The Wedding Date books and have loved every single one of them. I knew By theBook wasn’t going to be any different. I always love how she writes her female characters to be strong, independent, smart, and fearless. And I love that she writes her male characters to be vulnerable but still with that spice!

I loved the Beauty and the Beast vibes this book has. It is my favorite Disney movie. I loved the relationship between the characters. My only issue was I didn’t feel the events in Beau’s life were extreme enough to make him pit off writing his memoir for years. I felt like that was exaggerated too much and left me feeling a little unimpressed.

Overall, this book is a great and fun read!

Thank you to #NetGalley, Jasmine Guillory, and the publisher for the ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The "Meant to Be" series has been absolutely wonderful! This series is based off of Disney princesses but set in the modern world with "ordinary women" I wasn't sure how I would feel about the second book as I absolutely loved the first one, but "By the Book" was absolutely amazing! I like that each book in this series is being written by a different woman author.
"By the Book" is based off a modern Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Our story begins with Isabelle who gets her first job in publishing and is very excited, but as time goes on Isabelle is overworked and underpaid with no chance of being moved up in the company. Isabelle wants to change that, so when she overhears her boss not being able to reach an author for his overdue memoir, she jumps at the chance to go out and try to get him to write it. How hard can it be?
Izzy quickly learns it is not going to be easy, but will some patience and determination melt the heart of a difficult author?
Jasmine Guillory did an amazing job with this book!! Both of the main characters are dealing with their own inner troubles but I felt like they dealt with their issues in a positive way. I don't want to say too much because I will give it all away. I will highly recommend this book to others!

So I had no clue going in to this that it was a Beauty and the Beast rom com retelling! I was honestly so pleasantly surprised. There are so many adorable references to the actual story but all are very witty and just small mentions.

I absolutely adored the characters in this one and their banter. Their enemies to lovers development was a slow burn but a really good one and I really enjoyed their time together! Beau’s backstory was really a good addition to his writing challenges and I liked seeing Izzy help him work through some of his struggles.

Overall, this was a really sweet, closed door romance that I flew through.

This book was a slog for me to get through. This was my first Jasmine Guillory so I had high expectations after seeing so much hype. Additionally, I am a HUGE Beauty and the Beast fan, so I thought - wow, this will be perfect! I was so excited to get started on a story combining two of my favorites -- Belle and books. However, this book did not do it for me. It felt like a chore to read. I found myself very bored at the start of the story. Once the action started, I thought it would pick up. But I did not find the premise convincing at all (why didn't she just...leave??). I also found it weirdly executed. Maybe Beauty and the Beast just doesn't translate well to modern times and that's the issue of this book series more so than the author or book itself. Either way, I wouldn't recommend this one for others unless they are a huge fan of the author already. It's definitely not the one to start out with.

So, here's the thing. I loved Beauty and the Beast. I was fascinated by that movie when it first came out (the cartoon one not that horrible live action one) and felt like holy cow there's a Disney Princess just like me. I would rather be reading and I would daydream for hours about traveling and leaving my little town. I even had my very own Gaston who is now in jail cause you know, attempted murder is still illegal you guys. Okay...moving on. So when I saw that NetGalley had Jasmine Guillory's newest available and it was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, I jumped on it. I crossed my fingers and toes and hoped I would get this one to review. And I got it! [insert crowd cheers]. And then I read it. This just didn't hit at all. I think the biggest issue is that unlike with the first book in the series, Guillory doesn't have a unique take on this tale. At least not one that is going to make you want to re-read this. The first book in the series, "If the Shoe Fits" retold Cinderella and the setting was a Bachelorette style competition. This one just has Isabelle (Izzy to her friends) going off to get someone to write their memoir. It was just meh. Reading about how others write is not that interesting to read about. And the chemistry really wasn't there for me either. The book does have a Happily Ever After so that was great, but honestly I felt bored throughout this one. The writing was solid, the flow was too, I just didn't care about the actual plot or characters so 3 stars.

"By the Book" follows 25 year old Isabelle Marlowe who is working as an editorial assistant at Tale as Old as Time (TAOT). She's initially excited to be working at TAOT, but two years later she feels stuck. She tried writing a book and passed it along to her coworker, Gavin Ridley, but he tells her that the draft isn't very good. And she doesn't seem to be progressing up the ladder at TAOT. When she gets to go to California for a convention, she pitches her boss Marta that she alone may be able to get through to a client of TAOT's, Beau Towers. Beau is the child of two high profile Hollywood celebs who was provided an advance to write a memoir, but he has not been able to produce anything yet. Marta agrees that Isabelle can go, and she finds herself outside Beau's towering home and tells him that she can give him pep talks to help him with his writing (yes I am serious). Even though Isabelle is initially put off by Beau, she does get an agreement she can stay to help him with his memoir. 

I don't know. Isabelle (Izzy) was not my cup of tea at all. Probably because she yelled and made nasty comments/assumptions about Beau and it just got tiresome real quick. The only thing that I can say that I loved about this character, was her love of books.  

Beau wasn't even beast like. Of course Guillory had to change this story up, can't have a random male screaming at the heroine, but there's no real temper or anything there. He literally makes fun of Izzy and she loses it and takes herself upstairs. And then she loses it again and someone he ends up apologizing to her. The whole thing was a mess. And I wish we had gotten more insight into him. Towards the end of the book we get to see how he feels about things, but I thought it was kind of a shoulder shrug moment.

I feel sad that for me there wasn't any chemistry there at all. We have some fade to black love scenes which I don't know if that happened cause of the power of the Mouse or what. But it felt lame especially since I have read Guillory's other books and always enjoyed how she wrote her love scenes in the first two books of her "The Wedding Date" series. 

If you are looking for any of the other characters from the cartoon to appear, you will have a while to wait. We have Michaela Kettle (yes that's her last name) who is somehow Beau's cook, but is also helping him get a foundation off the ground? It makes no sense to me why she would also be cooking. I just gave up. 

Izzy at times feels like the furniture is talking to her and it made me roll my eyes.

I guess Gavin is supposed to be Gaston? Nah. It doesn't really work. He's just an aggravating coworker.

The book keeps things moving, but honestly reading about someone else teaching a person how to write a memoir or the tricks they used was not interesting. I fell asleep a few times reading this. The flow of the book was solid, things keep moving. 

The ending was sweet. I just felt like this wasn't a great retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

Such a charming and delightful retelling of Beauty nbd the Beast. I thought the tie-ins were cute and I enjoyed the posh Santa Barbara setting.

What a delight! This book was a charming take on a classic fairy tale, incorporating aspects from the fairy tale in ways that were entertaining and engaging. The characters had depth and I was very invested in what would happen to all involved.

This modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast fell just a little flat for me. I am a fan of Jasmine’s and was very excited about this ARC. I thought the California setting was a good contrast to a typical European fairytale setting. Beau was a decent character to portray the beast, and his personality fit the mold. Izzy is the character I’m having conflicting feelings about. I liked that she had a profession in the publishing industry, but felt there could be something more added to her character. Maybe an additional backstory about her childhood and her parents? I just couldn’t seem to connect to her character as well. However, the slow burn between Beau and Izzy was well done, getting to know each other through their time spent in the library and surfing. All the Beauty and the Beast Easter eggs made me smile, especially Michaela as the Mrs. Potts character. Overall not a bad read by any means, but not my favorite of Jasmine’s. Thank you for the opportunity to read this read ARC!

Jasmine Guillory's By the Book starts somewhat slowly and seems like other "obnoxious boss" books, but blossoms beyond the avenger theme into an insightful coming-of-age/romance. Jasmine delves into the challenges of writing and/or editing a memoir. Jasmine Guillory has written a satisfying novel. A good read.

It's no surprise that Jasmine Guillory wrote an updated version of Beauty and the Beast that will surely delight everyone from diehard Disney fans to those who've never even heard of this story.

Yall, I can not resist a fantasy retelling, especially a beauty and the beast one! This rom com had me in tears at parts and hysterical at others. I loved how the author hit on racism and heavy topics. Fantastic