A review by laurapecora
Once Upon a Charming Bookshop by Heatherly Bell

2.0

I liked the premise and the characters, but IMO this book was not well written. It felt like a first draft of a story that still needed a lot of editing to make into a good book. The pacing, in particular, was terrible. Instead of regular progression to the plot it was like long stretches of going in circles followed by huge changes that seemingly came out of the blue, like characters just suddenly doing a complete 180 in their course of action based on nothing at all. The characters' interior thoughts did not make sense with their actions, and then the explanations for the actions that came later felt like a sociopath trying to justify themselves after the fact when they've confused everyone with their weird behaviour. It was disconcerting and made characters I originally liked become incomprehensible and annoying and I've never wanted to re-write a book more.