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A review by alba_marie
The Cosy Teashop in the Castle by Caroline Roberts
2.0
Very average, in terms of writing and characterisation. The northern England castle setting was underutilised. The ins and outs of learning how to run her own teashop was interesting but I wasn't at all invested in the romance angle. I loved hearing about her ideas about the teashop and got frustrated when about halfway through stopped thinking about the teashop and wouldn't shut up about sex with with this average, boring dude.
I struggled to connect with most characters. I found the stereotypes to be over generalised - of course Lord Henry doesn't understand basic technology and of course being from an upper class family he must be stuffy and condescending right? Of course Ellie and Joe from the working class must be the hard workers who have had hard lives. Of course as a female, Ellie is massively girly and all she likes is baking and shopping and high heels and sqeals at the sight of mud and needs Joe to protect her from said mud and any other difficulty outside of a kitchen. Of course Joe the boy loves steak (only thing he eats in the whole book besides Ellie's cake) and Batman and being outside like a proper boy and can't be trusted in the kitchen besides making tea (and even then needs supervision). Ellie's mum is awful, she basically doesn't believe in her daughter at all and spends the whole book telling her she'll never make it, so why bother trying? She wants her to just settle for a bland little life like she did, and stay away from even daring to dream. She constantly wears her down with her "you'll never make it" and "you're wasting our money " and "why even try, it won't work ". I found this disturbing, all the more so because I know someone like her and that attitude really negatively effected her own kids. I also found it disturbing because the author didn't condone this behaviour and I think we were meant to like the mum!
The sex is cringe worthy. The relationship was boring. I honestly don't see these two people together. The end was unnessecary, and focussed only on the romance side of the plot (that I didn't care about) and never addressed the teashop side of the story that I did care about.
I chose this book because I am trying to read a little outside my comfort zone and I got it for free. I was having a tough couple days and wanted something light. Which this was, just too bad it wasn't more guilty pleasure and less eyeroll stereotypes.
I struggled to connect with most characters. I found the stereotypes to be over generalised - of course Lord Henry doesn't understand basic technology and of course being from an upper class family he must be stuffy and condescending right? Of course Ellie and Joe from the working class must be the hard workers who have had hard lives. Of course as a female, Ellie is massively girly and all she likes is baking and shopping and high heels and sqeals at the sight of mud and needs Joe to protect her from said mud and any other difficulty outside of a kitchen. Of course Joe the boy loves steak (only thing he eats in the whole book besides Ellie's cake) and Batman and being outside like a proper boy and can't be trusted in the kitchen besides making tea (and even then needs supervision). Ellie's mum is awful, she basically doesn't believe in her daughter at all and spends the whole book telling her she'll never make it, so why bother trying? She wants her to just settle for a bland little life like she did, and stay away from even daring to dream. She constantly wears her down with her "you'll never make it" and "you're wasting our money " and "why even try, it won't work ". I found this disturbing, all the more so because I know someone like her and that attitude really negatively effected her own kids. I also found it disturbing because the author didn't condone this behaviour and I think we were meant to like the mum!
The sex is cringe worthy. The relationship was boring. I honestly don't see these two people together. The end was unnessecary, and focussed only on the romance side of the plot (that I didn't care about) and never addressed the teashop side of the story that I did care about.
I chose this book because I am trying to read a little outside my comfort zone and I got it for free. I was having a tough couple days and wanted something light. Which this was, just too bad it wasn't more guilty pleasure and less eyeroll stereotypes.