This one was a miss for me. Bella is a receptionist at a small publishing house in London, but really dreams of being a writer. Her life begins to fall apart around her when her best friend, who is part of her flat share, gets engaged and moves out, and her parents, who she modeled her fairy tale ideals after, announce they are getting divorced after 30+ years of marriage. In an emotional tailspin, she decides that she's going to leave one of her shoes with her phone number written on it in a bar, hoping her Prince Charming will find it. In the meantime, she uploads a short story about her night with "the big bad wolf", an unfortunately hairy man, to a Wattpad-esque website, and quickly goes viral. Chasing this success, she finds more men to sleep with for the sake of the story, and acts self centered and gross to her friends, roommates, and family along the way. She's so wrapped up in herself that she can't see that her real Prince Charming, her best friend's brother, was in front of her all along. This had potential with the fairy tale reenactment slant, and I usually enjoy single London girl stories, but Bella wasn't a particularly likeable FMC and acted very immature for her age. I also don't react well to change in my life and tend to be dramatic about it, so maybe I just didn't like that magic mirror being held up at me either. It was also very long for a rom-com and I felt there could have been whole sections omitted for brevity and it wouldn't have impacted the plot. Read this one if you enjoy a London setting and the best friend's brother trope.

Thank you to @netgalley and @Stmartinspress for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to @macmillian.audio for a free download of the audiobook.

Bella’s life is a mess. Her best friend moves in with her boyfriend, so she now lives with some new questionable characters. She’s working in a job, but it isn’t the career she dreams of. Bella deals with things in all the wrong ways…including dating. She starts to post stories about her different dates with “Frogs”…when in walks her best friends brother.

This book is adorable, funny and swoon worthy. It had witty banter, relatable characters, and moments that made me LOL. If you’re looking for a RomCom you can’t put down…Pick this one up!

5 stars

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Thank you #Netgalley

Bella is left watching her best friend and roommates move on with their lives, connecting with others, dating, getting engaged, etc. Meanwhile Bella is in a rut, when her friends become to busy or move out, she doesn't know what to do with herself. She works in publishing and decides to start writing and when she learns about platform where she can share chapters, she jumps right in. But this time, Bella focuses on finding her prince charming, she forces herself into dating situations then ultimately writes about them in a fairy tail real world manner. As with any rom com type read, little does Bella realize what is right in front of her ;)

FMC: Bella- I think a different character in the book described our FMC perfectly: “you know, you really aren’t what I expected… [you’re] a piece of work”. Bella was a truly terrible MC and I couldn’t relate to anything she did, said, or thought.
POV: 1st person, single POV
HEA: yes? Mild HFN but really left me with so much longing for a proper romance close…
spice: mildly spicy, there are a couple open door scenes but mostly fade-to-black
TWs: sexism, slut shaming, divorce
standalone: yes
final thoughts: I didn’t enjoy it, but I stuck it out really hoping for character growth and a brother’s best friend lightbulb moment of “oh I don’t love my BFF like that I’ve just been in love with her win brother this whole time and didn’t realize it” but we really never got that. This took me months to read and I’m usually a 1 book per day person. None of the characters were lovable and barely any were likable. This might be someone’s cup of tea if they’re looking for quirky non-romance and more friend and flaw driven focus.

DNF at 30%. I thought the FMC was a complete whack job. She was selfish and rude and didn't think about anyone but herself, but wondered why should couldn't find anyone. Ultimately I didn't connect with her or feel bad for her and I couldn't stomach finishing it.

3/5

I thought that this was a cute read; however, I had a hard time getting through this at moments. I really enjoyed the fairytale aspect of the story, and it really brought me back to my childhood at times, but I was expecting so much more based on the premise at the back of the book!

Sadly, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Bella and found her immaturity to be annoying at times. I felt like she was unreasonable towards her best friend and that the story was repetitive at times.

I was wishing for more romance within the plot and ended up disappointed.

Thank you for St. Martin's Griffin and Netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I love a good fairytale retelling romcom. This was NOT it. This story had all the possibilities to be amazing and instead fell very very flat. I've never really been one to find main characters irritating but my gosh Bella needed to grow the heck up. Her conflict with Ellie and Mark was down right juvenile. The eventual romance with her besties brother, we all knew it was coming (I mean the part with Marty and the chocolate and the puppies or when he showed up at her parents house, yes I melted a little bit) but we didn't get to see any chemistry or romance develop it was almost like the romance was assumed, that it was inevitable from the beginning to 90% into the book, it was. For most of the book we saw her egging him and not in a flirty way either, she was downright awful to him for the majority of the book. I mean come on, a romcom without the romance? And their third act conflict without a resolution. No glimpse of them officially getting together until the very abrupt ending that didn't even tie up the heroine and eventual hero, instead it was just mentioned that they were a thing. As cute as I wanted this to turn out, this book was a really hot mess right from the beginning.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my review!

A clever story, tying in familiar tropes with interesting character resolves.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for granting me an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book to be quite hilarious and I really loved the fairy tale inclusions and puns. They were definitely the highlight for me. What was a miss for me was the behavior of the MC Bella and her best friend. Both girls were very immature. I also did not like how Marty was just kind of an out of nowhere thing on Bella's part. There were very cute moments in their interactions that I felt she missed and then for her to all of a sudden be like yeah Marty. I don't know, maybe it's just me.

I had to dnf this one. I really wanted to like it but the MFC was so annoying and whiny. I felt like she wanted it to be all about her.

Not That Kind of Ever After
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Romance
Author: Luci Adams
GR: 3.26

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Audio and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased.

My Thoughts: The premise of this book was cute, I just felt it was redundant in places and dragged a little in other places. I wanted something a little different for this book. Not a bad book per say, I just wanted more. Bella engages in behavior in multiple ways, her dating life, her best friend, and her roommates. I did stick it through until the end. I would definitely give this author another look as there were parts of the book that I really enjoyed.

The story is narrated by Bella, in her POV. I had a really hard time connecting with Bella due to her behaviors. Yes, I understand this is fiction, I just wanted more for Bella. She engages in unhealthy sexual relationships, she pushes her best friend away with her deep resentment with her best friend’s boyfriend, however, I loved the premise of her writing, if it was fiction and not the result of her sleeping around. She really was outright nasty to her best friend’s boyfriend, when he did nothing necessarily to provoke the nastiness. I did like the ending, just wish there was a different direction to get there. There was romance in the last 20% of the book, the rest just felt like aimless drifting. The characters had witty banter, sarcasm, however, it lacked connection until the last part of the book. The author’s writing was crisp, steamy, and flowed well.

I would say read the reviews, all of the reviews out there, and then make a decision on whether to read this book. I will say that I would absolutely give the author another try as I liked the writing structure.

I wanted to like this book. I was drawn in by the premise and when I learned Bella believes she owns more books than the rest of London combined I was all in! But then I couldn’t get past how immature she is. On her first date - all she could focus on was how hairy her date was. Okay - I could handle hearing about that once. But it was over and over and over again - to the point where it became so much that I’m tapping out - this one is a DNF for me. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

This book was kind of all over the place for me. It was way too long and I felt that there were areas that could have been cut out to make the story flow faster. The idea for the story was cute and I think it had good bones, but the execution just wasn't that great because of Bella. Bella was such a hard character to like. I felt like she kept messing up and not learning from her mistakes. She didn't treat her roommates very well and it sounded like she wasn't the best house mate either. I did not understand why she hated Mark so much. Like I get being very attached to your best friend, but unless Mark actually did something bad to Ellie I did not understand why Bella HATED him so much. It took too long for Bella and Marty to get together and the weird misunderstanding that they had after the first time they slept together just showed how little Bella learned from all the mistakes she'd be making. I did enjoy some parts of the book but Bella really made it hard for me to give it more than 3 stars.

It was kind of cute but I wasn’t into it. The main character, Bella drove me bonkers. Everything she does, she was doing it negatively. I was really disappointed in it. I expected more from it. Too many one night stands, crazy roommates especially her new roommates (I’ve had my share of wild and wacky roommates and my neighbors but none has come remotely close to hers) I’m not understanding how she turned into this person who put up with her attitude for so many years from her parents, her best friend, and her other friends. The world evolves around her. The stunt she pulled on her new man….boy. If I was that man, I would’ve dumped her ass long ago! Her personality just doesn’t change overnight. Improvements takes time especially with therapy.
Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s the way world is and time is changing. I could be wrong. Just too much negativity for me.
I’m giving it two and half stars for writing, and cool cover.

Thank you St. Martin’s and netgalley for letting me read ARC ebook.
As usual, all of my reviews are purely my own opinions without any influence from any publishers.

Rating: DNF

This book was just not for me. It felt all over the place and I just couldn't get into the characters or the plot. The main character was incredibly annoying. I kept trying multiple times to finish this book, but it inevitably put me into a one-month reading slump because it was just not for me.

I had a little bit of a tough time getting into the story. Maybe it was because the main characters life is nothing like mine but I'm not sure. I just had a hard time relating to her in any way. That being said, I thought the journey part and finding herself was sweet even if I couldn't get into it. I liked her relationship with her best friend and how she had to expand herself to find herself.

i was really interested in the sexy spin off of disney classics and i thought it was such a fun idea. i think, though, inasmuch as i found the story really funny; i found bella to be impossibly annoying. it was incredibly frustrating to read her stumble through the plot the way she did and i wanted to shake sense into her so many times.

This was a fun and quick read. It was a different kind of Romance than I was expecting to read. It was a little redundant for my preference but besides for that the story line was good.

Not That Kind of Ever After is a great love story. But it's not a love story between two people, rather it's a love story about one person learning to love themselves. It's about the love of friends and family and the relationships we choose to find with those around us. Equally parts hysterical and reflective, I could not put this one down!

This was an enjoyable romance that I didn't want to put down. I loved the main characters and the story was well developed.