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elenajohansen's review
1.0
DNF @ 30% for the first book, did not bother with the second and third.
Sloppy sentence construction that often matches a pronoun with the wrong noun or person--at one point it sounded like someone was going to have to drive through lemonade instead of snow, for example.
Inconsistency in character details: In the prologue, Isabella is specifically stated to be marrying at nineteen. In Chapter 1 we move forward five years, which makes her twenty-four, right? However, she loses her father at twelve, but then "even now, fourteen years later" Isabella is still hiding her sadness. 12 + 14 = 26. So how old is she?
Glaring grammatical errors: "Go salt [the sidewalks], then I'll fixing your face." Nobody caught that?
Overuse of stock phrases: "that fateful day," "knock me over with a feather," "the/his/her idea had merit," (that one showed up several times.)
Extremely shallow relationships that aren't explored, just stated. Isabella pouring her heart out over her impending divorce to her best friend, that I believe, sure. But to her professor that we, the readers, have only just met and barely heard mentioned? Who does that? Does the professor have some sort of mind manipulation powers, because when Gabriel has a meeting with her, instead of acting at all sensible, he's raving about his chance encounter with a mystery woman in the hallway (Isabella) rather than trying to convince the professor to let him into the class?
Also, speaking of shallow, what's the point of Gabriel having his own POV if all his sections are incredibly short and usually pointless? He gets far less time spent on developing his character than Isabella does, and it doesn't do him any favors that we know so much more about her than him. He's so "charming" that without depth he comes off as smarmy, and of course, since this is a fairy tale retelling (barely, though, nothing about this really said "Cinderella" to me) he has to be Prince Charming perfect. His last name is even Charmant.
Ultimately, I feel like I just read a first draft instead of a published work.
Sloppy sentence construction that often matches a pronoun with the wrong noun or person--at one point it sounded like someone was going to have to drive through lemonade instead of snow, for example.
Inconsistency in character details: In the prologue, Isabella is specifically stated to be marrying at nineteen. In Chapter 1 we move forward five years, which makes her twenty-four, right? However, she loses her father at twelve, but then "even now, fourteen years later" Isabella is still hiding her sadness. 12 + 14 = 26. So how old is she?
Glaring grammatical errors: "Go salt [the sidewalks], then I'll fixing your face." Nobody caught that?
Overuse of stock phrases: "that fateful day," "knock me over with a feather," "the/his/her idea had merit," (that one showed up several times.)
Extremely shallow relationships that aren't explored, just stated. Isabella pouring her heart out over her impending divorce to her best friend, that I believe, sure. But to her professor that we, the readers, have only just met and barely heard mentioned? Who does that? Does the professor have some sort of mind manipulation powers, because when Gabriel has a meeting with her, instead of acting at all sensible, he's raving about his chance encounter with a mystery woman in the hallway (Isabella) rather than trying to convince the professor to let him into the class?
Also, speaking of shallow, what's the point of Gabriel having his own POV if all his sections are incredibly short and usually pointless? He gets far less time spent on developing his character than Isabella does, and it doesn't do him any favors that we know so much more about her than him. He's so "charming" that without depth he comes off as smarmy, and of course, since this is a fairy tale retelling (barely, though, nothing about this really said "Cinderella" to me) he has to be Prince Charming perfect. His last name is even Charmant.
Ultimately, I feel like I just read a first draft instead of a published work.
jaime_bookworm's review
4.0
Great collection of stories about 3 close friends and the women they fall for. I'm surprised that I didn't recognizes the stories as contemporary retellings of well known fairy tales, but that fits perfectly.
My favorite was the third - three wishes - which told the story of Charlie, Olivia and Ben. My heart broke for them, I laughed, I cried, it was just an amazing story with such a great happy ending.
All three stories were captivating.
My favorite was the third - three wishes - which told the story of Charlie, Olivia and Ben. My heart broke for them, I laughed, I cried, it was just an amazing story with such a great happy ending.
All three stories were captivating.
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