I was a little weary of this book after reading reviews. However, I ended up enjoying it more than I expected.

Bella Marble works as a receptionist in publishing but really she wants to be a writer. She also wants her best friend to dump her boring boyfriend Mark because he hates Bella. She also wants to find her happy ever after.

After an uneventful one night stand, Bella has the idea to write a book of her journey to find her happy ever after. Of course - the guys will have to fit the part of fairy tale princes.

I hated the characters from the beginning but I really appreciated the growth they experienced. By the end, I was satisfied with the book, even if I didn’t like all of the ups & downs along the way.

Overall, a solid 3 stars for a book that I enjoyed more as an audio than as a kindle read.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Not That Kind of Ever After had some sure moments. It was easy to see the ending. Unfortunately we had to deal with Bella being a self absorbed idiot for most of the book. I found myself yelling at her multiple times.

This is a cute and poignant story. Luci Adams reminds us that we each have a story. "My story isn't your story" is my interpretation of Luci's message. We all have a path and it's not linear, but it's wonderful all the same

This book wasn't at all what I expected.
I had a hard time not disliking Bella from the start. She wasn't very friendly but she was also just annoying in general. I had a hard time getting into it and even though I tried to push myself, I shouldn't have had to as much as I did.
When I want to read a romance, I'm looking for someone that while they may be going through hard times, they can still be strong in some ways. & sadly I never really found that with Bella and I just didn't care for the story much.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me try this story.

This was not what I thought it would be. It was not bad but was not great. It was real. How you wake up one day and realize you're life is so far off course and you don't know how you got there. Her life is one disaster after another and though I felt bad for her, I didn't like her much as she was annoying in my opinion

This book was a lot more fun than I expected, and I had high expectations! At times I was a little annoyed with Bella's lack of self respect and self reflection vs the standards she put on others, but I really enjoyed her journey. The book within a book premise was super fun and all the characters we met really added a lot. 4 stars and a great read!

Such a great binge-worthy read. The dynamic and relatable characters came more to life with each page. The story kept me wanting more until the very end.
Highly recommend.

A super cute romance with every fantasy trope you could want in a novel. I really enjoyed this book.

Oh, Bella! How I can relate to modern age dating. I love, love. So this book hit me right in the feels of everything I am currently going through!

The concept is so fun. I loved the idea of turning her dates into stories that were fairy tale retellings. I think Bella was just a hard character to connect with. She seemed rather naive throughout the book, and I just didn't see as much growth in her character as I would have liked.

I received this book as an advance reader copy and I was happily impressed. It was a bit of slow start for me during the first couple chapters. Mainly, because the main character was a hot mess and constantly made decisions that I would never make. Of course this was all apart of the plot and the character development, so I’m not holding the slow start against the books rating.

I felt the characters all had great personalities. Not in the sense that they were all fantastic heros but that they were all real. There was great representations of all sorts of people and relationships, which was nice to see in a romance. Overall I would give this 3.5+ stars!

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🎧Song Pairing: Ever After - Bonnie Bailey

💭What I thought would happen:

I was here for the cover and title tbh was hoping for a retelling.

📖What actually happens:

Bella is an aspiring writer working at a literary house as a receptionist when she has the brilliant idea to start turning her life into modern day fairytales through one night stands (ie the Big Bad Wolf, Pied Piper, Prince Charming). She signs up on a beta reader website and submits chapter by chapter and is shocked when she gets positive feedback.

While the beginning of her writing career finally takes off her better half, Ellie, gets engaged to the insufferable Mark and will be moving out. Mark is always undermining Bella and ripping Ellie away from her. She wants things to go back to how they used to be.

🗯Thoughts:

The beginning had me kind of bored THEN it actually got quite intriguing and I was cruising through THEN there was 💯 unnecessary conflict and the book went too long and had me going 🤦🏼‍♀️

The MC is actually an awful character. She treats everyone as disposable or the bad guy. While sometimes she is the victim, most of the time she’s just a real asshole. At least there is a character arc where improvement is made.

This book was 10/10 unnecessarily long. At first I was like how does this book have such a low GoodReads rating (3.27) around 80% I definitely understood. I literally said out loud you stupid entitled bitch.

Loved the concept and definitely loved certain parts but there was major room for improvements for this one to be stellar! Mic drop.

Cute and charming. I loved the way it all came together at the end and was happy to sit in my feels. A feel good read for everyone.

Slow build and no diverse characters. I didn’t really identify with any of the characters and wasn’t really invested in the story because of that.Not for me, but that doesn’t mean others won’t enjoy it.

Bella is a receptionist at a small publisher and has lost her drive for work. Her dreams of being an author have stalled out. Her best friend, Ellie, is moving out of the shared flat and getting engaged while she is single and struggling with dating app disasters. When she jokingly writes up her latest bad date in the vein of Little Red Riding Hood as joke she feels a little better, but then she feels worse. She finds out about a chapter-by-chapter app she can publish on and loads the story of the big bad wolf on a whim. She jokingly plans a whole series with her best friend until the fiance tells her she could make the stories up, she doesn't need to act out and live them to be successful. That leads to a huge fight with Ellie. At the same time her parents tell her their perfect marriage is ending. Her old flatmates don't like the new ones so they manage to be elsewhere most of the time. The only one Bella really has left is Ellie's playboy brother, Marty.

I loved the creativity of the bad dating stories told around fairy tales. I didn't love the conflicts with Ellie and Marty, but I think they were necessary for Bella to grow. It didn't stop me from yelling at her frequently and loudly. It was a great exploration of that age where everything is on the verge of working out but you don't know it yet and you just need to keep going. Bella (and we readers) were rewarded with a happily ever after and a lot of laughs.

I like rom-com books with strong female characters. This heroine just smacked of desperation and I found it off-putting. I liked the fairy tale references but that was the only bit I enjoyed.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC

I did not expect to end up loving this book because I was mildly annoyed with Bella through the first half of the book, but Marty and his one liners saved the story for me. I adore Marty and the moment when Bella realized she did too was a game changer. They are so funny together and the witty banter between them made my heart smile. They are one of my favorite couples and I was sorry to see their story end. The audiobook is a fabulous way to enjoy this novel and I highly recommend it.

This book started strong for me, and then fizzled. I did appreciate the humor, but the main character was way too much in my opinion. She judges everyone and always focuses on looks over actually getting to know people. And then she whines about circumstance rather than taking the initiative to fix it. I just didn't connect with her.

I loved Ellie and Marty but I found Bella deeply irritating and immature. About 70% through she realized she’s being selfish and things improve but she really got on my nerves. If the synopsis sounds good to you, I would recommend if you like comedies, British lit/books set in London, the best friends brother/friends to lovers tropes. The book is funny! Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the copy via NetGalley.

I had high hopes for Luci Adam's debut novel, Not that Kind of Ever After. I admire the woman take charge attitude and agree that females do not need to wait on a man to get their love life started. However; this was a slow moving book and I did not feel the amount of enthusiasm towards it as I had at the beginning.