lisareadsthings's reviews
144 reviews

3.5 rounded up. I so wanted to love this book but something just didn't click with me. It was super cute and the magical elements were fun and whimsical. I think that if it were YA and/or not classified as romance, it would have been better. I wasn't feeling the connection with the main pairing (for a spoilery reason) and found myself far more interested in the magical history and different kinds of magic and some of the other plotlines. Still an enjoyable enough read though hence the 3.5 stars.

2.5 very generously rounding up (for the perfection that is the cover). And I so, so wanted to love this one.

The book is adorable. Like, puppies and kittens lounging on rainbow clouds levels of adorableness. But that's all it has going for it. Thinnest of plots. Even thinner character development. This just isn't my kind of cozy, I guess.

I'm hesitantly giving this five stars because the parts that were good were sooooo good. Good enough that I can overlook the two things that really annoyed me.

Overall, this is a quick read that weaves together themes of grief, family, legacies, and love with just a smidge of supernatural ghostiness. There are some really fantastic moments and also several lines that ripped fresh wounds in my own grief.

Could have done without the entire Heather plotline though and my other main irritant is spoilery.

I really loved this. A fresh take on the Cinderella tale featuring a girl with some gumption. Definitely written for a young audience and a bit predictable, but it's still a great story.

Good premise but executed poorly. The pacing was clunky and the plot was kind of all over the place. There were several grammatical and spelling errors that couldn't be written off as UK English versus US English.

3.5 It's cute. And it made me literally laugh out loud several times. But, ehhhh, I felt like it was trying too hard to be cute and quirky. Still, it was a fun little sick day read.

I really liked the premise but the book itself was just underwhelming. Questions are left unanswered. I didn't feel much of a connection to any of the characters beside Lyra. It's told entirely from her point of view so I understand we're not seeing everything. But. There are ways to work around that and this book didn't do it.

I honestly didn't care if any of the secondary characters lived or died. Even the relationship with her brother seemed meh. And while I won't spoil the ending, it felt way too rushed and a little too much but, at the same, time, not enough. Disappointed to see the next book focuses on one of the secondary characters so it's unclear if there will be any satisfying conclusion to Lyra's story.

What do you do when you wake up at 1:00am and can't go back to sleep? You find a cute rom-com to binge. And this was super cute, I'll give it that. I loved the Cinderella retelling. But I just wasn't feeling the romance in this one. At all. I also kept getting a vague feeling this was written for young teens so they can feel grownup reading a book about adults.

This book could have been a solid four for me, maybe even a five, but the main character does something about 3/4 through that practically had me yelling out loud in frustration. I was also very disappointed in the lack of ghostiness. There's a little but if you're expecting a supernatural rom-com, you're probably going to be disappointed.