A review by rubiecore
A Court of Sugar and Spice by Rebecca F. Kenney

adventurous funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 I have very mixed feelings about this book. I was super excited for this because the premise of a nutcracker inspired story with fae is really cool, especially knowing that the next books in the series are inspired by some of my favorite stories. And while I did enjoy it to an extent, I constantly found myself rolling my eyes or having to walk away from it for a few minutes because of cringy dialogue or convenient parts of the plot. I think if I was able to turn my brain off and not think about the dialogue or certain plot points too hard, I could have enjoyed this a bit more. 

I want to preface my next point by saying that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sex positivity or being open about sex but the way it’s talked about in this book is just so,, uncomfortably direct? No tension, nothing, just direct “hey yeah my c*m tastes different every single time” and it’s like, okay? I’m sure there were more graceful ways for that information to be presented to us. I think I knew the directness of this book would be a problem for me when we were first introduced to Louisa’s POV and while I tried to give her a chance, I just couldn’t stand her or her “enemies to lovers” relationship with the Nutcracker. The enemies to lovers plotline felt incredibly forced. The Nutcracker and Louisa disliked each other for absolutely no reason, Louisa’s reasoning being as ridiculous as “he isn’t attracted to me!! What’s wrong with him?” like,, be so fr rn. There’s no way that’s why you dislike him. 

As senseless as the enemies to lovers plotline was, once the characters involved were together, their characters and relationship became much more tolerable overall. I preferred Clara and Fin’s insta-love relationship a lot more. 

Generally, the plot was fine and obviously I cared enough to see it through but there were so many eyeroll moments, either because of a certain plot point feeling forced or because of extensive info-dumping through the character’s dialogue. 

I might continue on in the series (bc I found out that Clara and Fin are in the second book lol) if I ever want something fast paced that I don’t have to think too hard about but idk we’ll have to see. I’m a bit bummed that I didn’t love this, especially because the third book is a Wizard of Oz inspired story and I love the Wizard of Oz ☹.

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