A whining selfish girl who takes advantage of her friends and thinks only of herself self destructs and finally, finally takes responsibility for her life and actions. A bit amusing, a lot annoying, this one was just a 3 for me as I wanted to slap the main character throughout the majority of the book!

Not That Kind of Ever After by Luci Adams

I want to talk about the positives in this book first and that the humor in the book was good. I did laugh a few times throughout the book. I like retellings and fairy tale parodies but this one missed the mark in making the story flow well together. I like the lightness along with the funny witty Bella which made this rom-com typical of other rom-coms. I just felt like the romance part of it went fast near the end and it through off the story which like I said the flow of the story was off.

Her one night stands she went out with where tragic in the experience in how they always ended up being terrible. Bella ended up writing about these dates and the story went viral. I thought some of Bella's behavior like getting in bed with her best friend and her boyfriend. It wasn't a sexual thing it just felt like a violation of privacy.

Bella is just a hot mess and maybe the dates are just the epitome of what her life is at the moment. I would run away as fast as I could from some of those dates. Anyways the humor came out in these dates.

Narrated by Josie Charles who brings the humor out in Bella which shines throughout the audio book the accent helped as well. If you like a typical rom-com that plays on parodies of fairy tell retellings then this book will be for you. This was started off good but like I said the romance near the end for me fell flat it was rushed. I would like to read something else from this author in the future.

Thank You to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio plus St. Martin's Press for a free copy of Not That kind of Ever After for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

Erhmmm.....nah. This has the premise to be cute but it was so back and forth. I listened to about a quarter and just was annoyed the entire time.

🦇 Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐

❝ People don't just need to have one fairy tale in their lifetime. If the books have told us anything it's that there are plenty of Prince Charmings in plenty of stories. There's no quota for how many stories you get to be a part of in life. ❞

❓ #QOTD What does "Happily Ever After" look like to you? ❓

🦇 Bella Marble isn't living the happily ever after she always imagined for herself. She's single (when she wants to live a legendary love story) and working as a receptionist (when she wants to be a published author) with no Prince Charming or publishing deal in sight. To top it off, her best friend of 29 years and roommate is moving out AND getting married, while her parents are getting divorced. In an effort to have fun and take risks, Bella posts a fairy tale retelling of a disastrous one-night stand on a story-sharing app. As @B.Enchanted, she develops a growing fanbase―one she intends to grow by finding other fairy tale-inspired encounters. When her quest for inspiration threatens her friendships, will Bella recognize she's standing in her own way of happily ever after?

💜 Luci Adams' debut novel challenges what we know about the fairy tales we grew up with. The true gem in this novel is the friendship between Bella and Ellie (The Elsa to her Anna). Having grown up together, they've survived every high and low side-by-side, and Ellie tries not to allow any amount of change to threaten that. Adams does a great job at increasing the ridiculousness of Bella's sexual encounters (ranging from reverse cowgirl with the Big Bad Wolf to a threesome with Hansel and Gretel). She balances a cast of supporting characters as well, each with more depth than the main character.

🦇 Unfortunately, it's difficult to like or even sympathize with Bella. From the first page, she's painted as desperate, inconsiderate, immature, self-centered, and whiney. We're not given any opportunity to empathize with her situation, namely because many of the conflicts she encounters are of her own making. When Bella's not the problem, it's the writing, which is so cringy that I had to read it aloud to my (less than thrilled about it) girlfriend to make sense of the prose. More than once, I had to put my Kindle down (a few times, I fought the urge to hit myself in the head with it, too). To prove my point: "I'm as much a feminist as the next millennial woman who pretends to be a feminist but isn't, despite wanting to be one." Really? There was nothing "feminist" about Bella's actions, and for the blurb to read "fairytale meets feminism" makes it so much worse. Both the Mystery Man's identity and Bella's "Mr. Right" are easy to guess from the start. Unfortunately, it was all a bit predictable in the worst way.

🦇 If you're looking for a quick read, ridiculous situations, and an MC who has to hit rock bottom (twice) before building herself back up, this book is for you!

🎭 Tropes 🎭
👠 Chick-Lit
🏰 Fairytale Retellings (Kind Of)
💞 Happily Ever After
🏳️‍🌈 Queer Characters

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

A fun read. Bella struggles after her best friend moves out, but when her alternative fairy tale goes viral will it help her get where she wants to be?

I have a lot of feelings about this book. Bella is in her late 20s and for as long as she can remember has dreamt of finding her prince charming but as it turns out all the frogs she's kissed are just that frogs. She lives in a flat share with her best friend Eliie, whom she has known her entire life. When Ellie gets engaged and suddenly her parents spring unexpected news on Bella she decides that maybe looking for the one isn't the right approach. When her friend suggests that instead of looking for the one she look for one she wants to spend the night with Bella takes that to mean she should let loose and embarks on a string of one-night-stands.

I really wanted to like Bella, under it all she is just a woman longing to find her perfect love. It is not unusual for a woman ... or man for that matter who is approaching 30 and seeing their friends all getting married and having kids to to start worrying if they will ever get to that next step of adulthood. I think for Bella having grown up in a very loving home, with a wonderful example of a fairy tale love in her parents to act irrationally when she starts to feel like time is running out. However, I really didn't like how she treated those around her who have loved her all along. I found her behaviour to be childish and very self-centred.

Bella does eventually hit rock bottom and realizes what has been in front of her all along might just have been exactly what she has been looking for. I loved this part of the book. I wish we had had a bit more of this relationship as it really helped me to warm back up to Bella but it might just have been a little too late.

This was my first read by author Luci Adams but I look forward to reading more from her.

That was highly entertaining! There was a part where I was super mad at Bella and wanted to put the book in the freezer because she was being so dumb it made my stomach hurt. But she quickly got herself together and made it better.
This really was Not The Kind of Ever After. Bella has a really bad one night stand with a very hairy man who’s last name is Wolf. She ends up writing a story about said one night stand and the MMC is the big bad wolf. She posts it online and it becomes popular so she sent out to “sleep” her way through the fairytales. What could go wrong? Everything! Everything could go wrong and it kind of does.
Bella eventually get herself together enough to realize what/who was standing right there in front of her the whole time.

Not that kind of ever after…This was fun. Bella may not have her life fully on track, but it’s not a total train wreck. As she experiences bad dates after bad date, I was excited to see her channel it into writing and find the fairy tale in the situations — each time I wondered what would come next, like the B.Readers! Does she make mistakes? Absolutely. Does she recognize them with 25% of the story to go, so that there is plenty of space for real resolution and the story to continue? Satisfyingly YES. Did I know how it was going to end? Also yes. But the predictability wasn’t a bad thing, and I really did enjoy this one. This was a quick, less-than-one-day read! Thanks Netgalley for the advanced copy.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Bella is very difficult to like. In fact, I did not like her. And I understand that she had to hit rock bottom to undergo her transformation, but she had so few redeeming qualities that I didn’t care. And most of the characters have a rather blasé attitude toward one night stands. I’m not exactly the morality police, but these characters could use some therapy.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

Painfully relatable protagonist. I liked that this book had some unexpected depth in what it had to say about the pains of those 20-something years and the struggle of maturing into a good human being.

The fairly tale gimmick was not for me, and I have a hard time imagining that a million people would follow that story... but I really liked the way the creative pursuit got tangled up in the romantic one. Really nice, modern meditation on the ethics of art within our culture of digital oversharing.

Also, this is the first friends to lovers I've ever liked! I think because they both had some really bad behavior to work through that prevented them, in a real way, from being together.

This is a frothy (sometimes silly) tale of a woman's hunt for the Prince Charming and happy life that seems to be eluding her. Bella's parents are divorcing, she's stuck in a dead end job as a receptionist when she wants to be a novelist, and her BFF has just gotten engaged. An offhand comment from Marty and the fact that an author has just gotten a book deal for writing he'd published on an app sets her off on a new path- writing about her bad dates. Bella gets so wrapped up in this that she doesn't realize (although the reader does) that her Prince has been there all along. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's trope-y and it's not the best rom-com ever but it's the sort of thing that makes a good read on a rainy day.

This has a solid premise, but the first few chapters are super cringe, and it made the subtly cringe parts of the blurb jump out even more!

I was not ready for how much I ended up enjoying this book. It was a wild ride from the start and although, at times, I didn't like Bella much, I can say I loved her in the end. Her journey is powerful. Bella grew up believing in the fairy tale dream. But as everyone around her seems to be making a success out of their lives, and getting their happily ever after, Bella feels stuck and confused. Turning to her love of writing, Bella uses a bad dating experience to put a twist on the classic fairy tale little red riding hood. (Trust me, this makes sense) When her story gets positive feedback on a writing sight, she continues with her fairy tale themes stories, searching out opportunities to create content.

Bella has reached a point in her life where she no longer cares who she is in a relationship with, she just wants to be in a relationship. Lots of things around her are changing as well and this is the catalyst for lots of poor decisions. The woman we meet is selfish, immature, drinking to excess, and unreliable. Seeing her put so little value on her self worth when hooking up was sad. The hook ups are mostly closed door/fade to black.
While this is a romance, I feel like it is mostly about Bella journey and growth. I loved seeing her holding a mirror up to her own actions and deciding who she wanted to be.

Thank you St. Martin's Griffin for the advanced readers copy!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Nothing in Bella’s life is going as planned. She’s not the author she always wanted to be, and she’s certainly not found the Prince Charming she’s been looking for. Since things aren’t working too well for Bella, she decides it’s time to change things up. Instead of focusing on finding Mr. Right, she’s going to focus on having a good time. After documenting her one-night stands on a story-telling app, her career starts to take off. She becomes obsessed with finding the next story for her readers, sometimes at the expense of those around her.

This book was entertaining at times, but it had one of the most unlikeable protagonists that I have ever read. Bella was self-centered and immature; she treated her friends terribly throughout the book. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough of a redemption arc for her to be redeemed. Also, the romance with the eventual love-interest didn’t make sense, because it was only really developed in the last 50 pages of the book.

I enjoyed the idea of the story and the humor that was sprinkled throughout the book. Ultimately, I really think the story would’ve benefited from some fine tuning. I have to say that the cover for this book sure is beautiful though!

This book was quite fun to read. I had a hard time keeping interest in the first half because the main character drove me absolutely insane. She was whiny, clingy, and mean for no reason to Marty. I just was not rooting for her at all really. But then when she decided to write her book of fairytales, I started to become more invested in the chaos she had created even though I knew the stories would somehow backfire on her. It was thoroughly an interesting concept that had be laughing. I definitely preferred the second half of this book solely because of the growth of the main character. She finally was able to see her wrong doings and fix the relationships with her best friend's fiancé and her true prince charming. All of those problems too where her just being petty truly, so I'm glad she had some growth. Overall, I really did think this story was fun and lighthearted. I enjoyed the plot, it had more substance than some romances do, and it had some cooky side characters, which are always a good time. I think I just wanted more dynamic from our main character and for her to not be so snobby in the first half of the book. I rate it 3.5 stars, but it won't let me do half stars.

This wasn't horrible, but it could have been better. I have a hard time with books where women in their late 20s act as if they're horrible old spinsters.

Not That Kind of Ever After by Luci Adams was a great read. Bella wants a happily ever after but keeps kissing frogs. She decides to make lemons into lemonade and start having fun. She takes her romantic encounters and turns them into fairy tales. Maybe she will find her happy ever after?

I liked Bella. She could be so stubborn sometimes but is not obtuse about it. She admits to being wrong and shows a lot of growth as a character. The side characters and men she meets are interesting, to say the least. I did feel bad for some of the guys she slept with but that speaks to the author's ability to write a small character that you kind of root for.

This debut book was fantastic and I would recommend it for anyone who likes a good fairy tale.

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martins Press, and Luci Adams for the e-ARC. This review is my own opinion.

There is a lot of chaos in Bella Marble's life. The world around her is collapsing around her. The fact that this was a British romance appealed to me. At times, Bella's choices seemed childish to me, and I thought she had made the wrong choices. There is no way I can reveal those choices without spoiling the book. Reading about the lives of other characters was enjoyable. Bella's work in publishing was interesting to me in the book. She described her quest for romance in the writing app in a captivating way that intrigued me. I rooted for her to find love and loved how it was right in front of her all along.

Thank you St Martins and Netgalley for the ARC of this book. This was an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martin’s Press and Luci Adams for the opportunity to read an ARC for “Not That Kind of Ever After”, this is my unpaid and honest review.
When I started this book I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was even better than I hoped it would be! What a fun journey of self discovery this story takes you on with Bella Marble. The fairytale spin is absolutely hilarious and I liked the cautionary tale about how online fame and popularity can have a dark side. I would love to read more by this author!

What a fun, flirty, fairytale story! The perfect book for fans of Rom-Coms.. Lots of giggles while reading & I enjoyed the banter..
3.5 stars