This book is adorable, and perfect for young book nerds who desire a little bit of romance!

While this was a cute read, it definitely wasn't my favourite fairytale-inspired story.

you can tell that the author is clearly a massive YA fan. From the moment I picked it up I totally identified with Pheobe, it was basically me, me a good 15 years ago but it still took me back!

Bookishly Ever After is one of those books which always puzzles me. You know the books, the ones you pickup and realise 20% of the way through that nothing is happening outside of the mundane... but you can't put it down, you're hooked on something you just can't put your finger on, and you keep reading goddamit!

For some reason, despite a "will they won't they" plot that could have easily come to a finale within a few chapters the authors managed to turn a short story into an entire book. I think this was partly down to the character development, most of whom were strong stereotypes but rather lovable, I actually cared what happened so I continued to read their story.

My only dislike was the jump to novels, it did add some context, I get that, but a third of the way through I started to skip them, it pulled me away from the main plot which I cared more about. That's not to say they weren't interesting, if they ever became novels in themselves I might even read some of them, I just didn't want to read snippets every now and them.

Such high expectations, but it didn't meet them. I don't like mg books, and this felt like one, unfortunately. Writing style and packing was so not me, but the idea was cute!

Utterly charming story about a 16 year old self-professed band nerd who looks to the fantasy / magical realism books she loves for inspiration when it comes to her own as yet nonexistent love life. A great cast of interesting characters.

I remember reading the description for this book, and thinking how cute it sounded. And then I get my hands on it.
And it truly was the cute story I hoped it would be plus some.

It offered some great well developed characters, and a fun plot that pulls you in from the start. And leaves you hanging on until the last page.
It had everything you could want in a book.
And I found myself just truly sitting back and enjoying this book. Not rushing or slowing down with it at all. But just taking that nice easy read that leaves you satisfied at the end and being able to shut off the kindle with that accomplished happy feeling.

3.5 stars

This book was freaking adorable! It was exactly what I needed after the emotionally draining experience that was 1984 :) Everyone here was just so nice... even the mean girl is like a fluffy marshmallow compared to your regular YA mean girl. Phoebe was super cute and adorkable, and even with the age difference I could totally relate to her bookish obsession (yes, fiction is the best kind of reality!) and Dev was absolutely swoon-worthy. Obviously there was a lot of teenage drama, and Phoebe's friends (especially Em) annoyed me a lot with their pushiness, but the story was still funny and enjoyable, although it got too clichéd towards the end. The writing was clean and simple, but the pace was a bit off because of the passages from Phoebe's books inserted at the end of every chapter - at the beginning of the book it's just Phoebe's mentioning or quoting her favourite books, which was very funny, but as the book progresses it becomes full pages of random stuff that didn't bring anything to the story in my opinion.

Very recommendable when in need of something light and fluff, I will definitely check the rest of the series out!

My Thoughts:

I was really looking forward to this book and I was not a big fan of it once I finished it. I loved the premise and what the book was about but it just was not the book for me. I will read the rest of the series and give it a chance. I loved the characters and parts of the plot.

Plot:

Pheobe is a huge bookwork and lives her books. She also works at a knitting store teaching classes. She is also in high school but prefers to live in fantasy world when she finds out Dev have a crush on her. She tries to change her looks and personality to attract him. That is the part of the plot that I did not like and that is why I rated as I did.

Characters:

I really liked Pheobe and her friends. I liked Dev as well and thought he was a well-done character. Some of Phoebe's actions annoyed me but she is a teenager so I did not find to much stuff that bothered me.

Sixteen-year-old Phoebe Martins is a major book lover. She lives for and in her books. The boy she likes from school is as hot as her latest book-boyfriend, and she wishes for her daydreams to become reality. But she is quiet Phoebe, the girl always either stuck in a book or knitting in school. Not really book-heroine worthy. Then Dev, another attractive boy at school, starts pursuing her. Can she put down her bookish dreams long enough to see the man standing right in front of her?

This girl, Phoebe, is basically someone I know. I've been her, and I know a few other girls like her. The author did a really good job capturing the life of a serious bookworm, or excuse me, a book dragon. I'm guessing Isabel Bandeira is one herself. Phoebe's book-influenced hobbies, the arts and crafts at school, the can't-talk-about-anything-else-but-no-one-wants-to-hear-it, the attending book signings and events in costume, and of course, the too distracted reading all the time. She is spot on.

Then there's the story. It it definitely interesting. Phoebe lives her life, first and foremost. The purely high school events come slowly (timewise, not plotwise), as in real life. Phoebe struggles through her attraction to two different boys, her mistakes, and the awkward situations she walks into. Phoebe is Phoebe, a teen with her head in the clouds. Dev is pretty longsuffering, though he has his own set of flaws and mistakes.

There isn't much else to say. The book is as it sounds - the story of a girl looking for her happily ever after in books rather than real life but finding it in the latter. I enjoyed it, and I think that anyone who enjoys books as much as Phoebe (and I) do, will appreciate this take.

I received a complementary copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I found it very hard to get into. After several attempts, I was not able to finish the book

I really enjoyed reading this book, I loved that Phoebe was a fellow bookworm, who crushes on fictional characters. The book took a little while to get into, but when I did get into it I really enjoyed it. I really liked that there was excerpts from the books Phoebe was reading throughout the book, giving you insights into Phoebe and the characters she often thought about.

This book was super adorable.

I liked the sound of a bookish main character, because don’t we booklovers all love our bookish characters?! Unfortunatelyas soon as I started reading this story, I immediately realized it was going to be a struggle. Basically this contemporary romance story has one cheesy high school cliche stacked on top of another up until the point I felt like I was drowning in them. And Bookishly Ever After isn’t only stuffed with cheesy cliches, but also has an overdose of annoying romance tropes as instalove and love triangles. This alone is enough for me to run away and hide in a corner, but since I normally never DNF my ARCs I decided to give this story a chance. Trust me, I’ve tried really hard to like this story. REALLY hard. But in the end I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was never able to connect to the writing style and felt it simply didn’t flow. The plot wasn’t really present and the chapters didn’t seem to connect naturally… And the characters. One more annoying, flat and cliche than the other! I thought I would at least be able to like or relate to bookish Phoebe, but I was wrong. She only managed to frustrate me and it just all didn’t feel natural. Am I partly to blame for this DNF? Yes. The blurb should have warned me to stay far far away from this one… Still, I’ve read AND loved romantic contemporaries before and Bookishly Ever After definitely ticked a lot of no-go boxes for me. Approach with care! Romance lovers who don’t mind cliches will most likely have a more positive experience though.

<b>Rating:</b> 2,5 stars

<i>Bookishly Ever After</i> is a very cute and relatable book for many readers out there, including me. Sometimes.

Our protagonist, Phoebe, is an avid reader. Slightly socially awkward, and prefers fiction over reality. Totally relatable, right? But to be frank, is goes a little downhill for me when she actively starts acting like her favourite book characters to get a guy's attention.

The plot's pace is slow. Very, <i>very</i> slow - almost agonizingly so. Which wasn't a problem for one third of the book, but <i>Bookishly Ever After</i> is a 300+ pages, and I think it's safe to say it would've been way more enjoyable if was at least 100 pages shorter. It started dragging out, annoyed me and lost my interest. The ending however predictable, was very cute though, so that was definitely a plus.

Our love interest is pretty cool, he's kind and really supportive of Phoebe's love for reading and respects it. The friends are alright, a little cliché and they lack some depth, but it wasn't <i>bad</i>. Overall, I did like reading <i>Bookishly Ever After</i>, but wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone.

This one is full of cute moments for the reader at heart. I couldn't get enough of this one and I can't wait to check out the rest of the books. You will die of the quirk in this book!! I do want to say that the romance in this one is center stage and that worked out well for me. Even though I am WAY older than the MC I could still relate to her from when I was younger and it was a very light-hearted read that I couldn't put down. If you want something to round out your summer then this one is it!! It won't disappoint you in any way other than it ends. But hey there is a book two!! So make sure to have it on hand!

There were many things I liked about this story, but many others that didn't really do much for my continued interest in it. I had so many mixed feels when it came to Bookishly Ever After. I enjoyed that this book was written with the book lover in mind, the blogger, the fandom crazed (like me lol), but it took me too long to get into it and not enough to keep me as excited as I was hoping to be.

The first few chapters moved slowly for me, as nothing seemed to really be happening. I tried to get more into the story-line and everything that Phoebe had going on, but I kept finding myself skimming through several parts. Then there were those moments the book lover can't help but see themselves in, like waiting in line at a book signing to meet one's favorite author, or finding your way to the book store for the newest book releases and some much needed latte's.

Even though I loved several parts of this novel, I was again reminded why it wasn't going to be in my favorites for this year. Aside from all the great bookish and fangirling moments, there were those where the reader just followed Phoebe around school for a considerable amount of pages. When we are finally introduced to Dev, she had already been crushing on a different character for a very long time. All of a sudden she finds herself having strong feelings for Dev when it's brought to her attention that he likes her more than a friend.

Just like that I'm on the fence again because Dev is really great character and I much prefer him to Kris who is described as the jock without a brain and who thinks extremely highly of himself (of course she is mostly infatuated with him because he resembles a beloved character in a book she is completely obsessed with). When it comes to Dev she thinks she might like him, thinks she might find him hot, it's all due to her knowing of his feelings so it has to happen right?

As if that weren't plenty, there's another factor to which includes Phoebe taking dating advice, flirting tips, how to act around a boy, all that good stuff, from fictional lead characters in the books she reads. Sometimes, I couldn't see why she would put herself through some of those scenarios, at other times it was funny to read through, such as the moment she decides to purposely fall over herself thinking Kris would catch her and she ends up hurting herself on the way down.

So yes, I liked many things, the most significant of them was that I could relate to Phoebe when it came to all the love she held for books and everything that's included in the book world. Everything else, though it left me hoping for a better story, I could live with as the above mentioned was more overpowering than the latter. It still left me split with its content, but not enough to leave this novel without enjoying the rest it had to offer this book nerd.

***I received this copy from Spencer Hill Contemporary via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.***

This is the first time I've read anything by Isabel Bandeira. I don't read much YA books, probably because I can't relate to them much anymore, but Bandeira managed to keep me interested. Phoebe Martins is a bookworm of the first degree. She loves reading. Reading is akin to breathing for her, and she can do it anywhere (I'm jealous). She's more of an introvert who loves to keep to herself, but she's not completely anti-social since she does have her group of friends who tolerate her bookworm tendencies. As a bookworm myself, I'm grateful for those who have put up with me.

Being a book-lover means having many book boyfriends. And Phoebe has MANY book boyfriends. But one in particular reminds her of a popular guy in school, Kris, who is the typical hot, student body president, and completely full of himself. That was definitely one of the things Phoebe and I differed in. While she's pining for the smart, jerk- I mean hot guy- Dev, her sexy Indian-American friend, is pining after her. Of course, she doesn't see it until her friend Em points it out and plants the seed of teen love. Then it's just a lot of dancing between Dev and Phoebe, which is fine, except for the part that at three-fourths of the book I wanted to punch her. Or maybe bash her head against the wall. Okay, that was probably too much.

Dev is smart, sexy, plays an instrument, sings, is nice to Phoebe- what more does the girl want?! It was way too much "Does he like me? Yes he does. Oh, wait maybe he doesn't." Like, ask him the "f" out already! I loved that they eventually opened up to each other, but Phoebe grew increasingly tiresome with her doubts. The worst that could have happened was he would laugh, and she's have to do was pretend she was kidding. Duh. Everyone knows that! But I digress. I enjoyed the incorporated snippets of the books Phoebe is reading throughout the course of the story. They fit perfectly with the issues she's dealing with at that part of the story. They help to get an insight to what she's feeling and find a way to get out of the mess she's in at the moment.

All in all, this was a nice read with many fun characters and memorable quotes. The only downside was the dragging out of the ending which had to do with Phoebe's indecisive nature. She gained a backbone, it just took her until the last three percent of the book to get it. I will definitely be reading more of Bandeira in the near future. 4 out of 5 STARS!

This is a sweet YA romance with a great central character in Phoebe, obsessed with books and knitting, and liable to get lost in either to the extent that she will let real life pass her by. After all with all her "book boyfriends" why on earth would she need a real life one? Turns out that her love life is about to get a lot more complicated, with not one but two real life boys vying for her attention. What's a girl to do? Turn to her favourite fictional heroines of course, and model her actions based on what they would do. But will fictional advice work in real life? Its going to get very interesting indeed as we find out.
Sweet, funny and very believable, this was a really fun light hearted read. As is so often the case in the YA genre, the romance is the lynch pin of the books plot, but the author does really good work in creating a great network of friends for Phoebe, with a diverse range of interests , and all the major characters seem well rounded ,not flat or one dimensional. The book feels very current, with Phoebe's interest in archery and cosplay but the story itself is timeless.

Chick lit is hard to write. Well, let me rephrase. Good chick lit is hard to write. Love stories, for all of their excitement, can be a little predictable to say the least.
A tall handsome man is lusted after by the quirky self -conscious girl. After some awkward but sexy encounters, they both realise they were meant to be together and they then live happily ever after.
For a writer to come up with not only a novel twist, but an interesting twist on this ancient recipe is a pretty hard task, particularly when the subject matter is one (I hope) everyone has had at least a little experience of.
Therefore it gives me great pleasure to introduce Isabel Bandeira and her new novel, Bookishly Ever After... it's a GOOD chick lit book!!
As a not-so-secret bookworm, Phoebe grabbed my interest straight away. She loses herself in novels every day, and romance will do no good unless it comes straight off the pages of the latest paperback. You can't really argue with that - men in books are the very best.
By creating a character I instantly connected with, Bandeira quickly drew me in. I love Phoebe's independent, I-don't-care-what-you-think attitude. Although she does fit in with the classic personality of many women in romantic novels, she has enough about her that she still feels like a tangible person.
We've also got a really charming love interest, a great cast of supporting characters, and most importantly a plot which is perfectly paced and teases just enough in all the right places.
You'll not find any x-rated bedroom scenes, but it doesn't need them to keep things exciting. A tastefully written story that keeps you turning pages, and one that I would highly recommend.