breakaway71 's review for:

Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston
5.0

It should be actually impossible for these books to keep getting better and yet HERE WE ARE and my heart has melted and I have been reduced to dolphin sounds to express all my feels.

Okay, look. I have made no secret in my life that I am ALL ABOUT Beauty and the Beast and it's various retellings. I am such a sucker for a good BatB story. And what I love most about Ashley Poston is that she can take a story (such as the decidedly Disney version of BatB), retelling all of the important parts, but still make it completely her own. When I thought about it, I could pick out things that were going to happen because the plotline followed a familiar route...but I never really stopped to think about it because I was so lost in the story!

Rosie and Vance were both a lot of fun, and as with PRINCESS AND THE FANGIRL, I lived for the cameos from previous books (Imogen in particular was such a great element here). The new side characters we meet are also delightful, and the smidge of unexpected side-pairing we get made me squeal with glee. The LGBTQA+ rep is, as always, excellent, and really there just isn't a single bad thing I can say about this. I've seen some people say this was a slow read, and boring, and I just did not see that. Honestly, I marathoned the book in a single afternoon the moment I got home from the bookstore. I could not put it down.

I think I would happily live in the Geekerella universe forever. I don't get the feeling there are future books in store for the series, but A GIRL CAN DREAM. Either way, I can't thank Ashley Poston enough for giving us all three of these wonderful books. These gorgeous, heart-melting love letters to both fairytales and fandom. I can't recommend them highly enough if you're in the mood for something feel-good and adorable.

And in the meantime...

Look to the stars.
Aim.
Ignite.