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A review by paulineerika
How to Survive a Modern-Day Fairy Tale by Elle Cruz
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
2.0
You know those rom-com movies where the story itself might have been cute, but everything felt really cheesy/forced and the actors were basically cardboard cutouts? Sadly, this felt a little like that. I don't necessarily have a problem with romantic tropes and cliches (and there were A LOT in this book), but not when they take the place of actual character and plot development. This book was as if a younger person (we're talking maybe teenager or close to that age) decided they wanted to write a romance novel with smut and it got published.
I didn't hate this book, but it was a chore to read. Claire's family is annoying and suddenly they're not! (You knew why they were acting the way they were, it just never got developed until neat little paragraphs near the end when the conflict came to a head.) Claire has her entrepreneurial dreams and then she doesn't! (Because "business come and go, but true love doesn't" or something like that.) Things just get wrapped up and explained away too neatly in a way that makes you wonder what just happened and why you spent 300 pages reading about it.
This was disappointing because I'd love to see more FilAm romance and FilAm family stories. I'm not willing to write Cruz off just yet, but I hope she can tighten up her writing a little more.
I didn't hate this book, but it was a chore to read. Claire's family is annoying and suddenly they're not! (You knew why they were acting the way they were, it just never got developed until neat little paragraphs near the end when the conflict came to a head.) Claire has her entrepreneurial dreams and then she doesn't! (Because "business come and go, but true love doesn't" or something like that.) Things just get wrapped up and explained away too neatly in a way that makes you wonder what just happened and why you spent 300 pages reading about it.
This was disappointing because I'd love to see more FilAm romance and FilAm family stories. I'm not willing to write Cruz off just yet, but I hope she can tighten up her writing a little more.