Monday, December 09, 2019

Glass Slippers, Ever After, and Me

Glass Slippers, Ever After, and Me. Julie Wright. 2019. Shadow Mountain. 336 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: My fairy godmother was all talk and no action. Like the tooth fairy, she was definitely not someone I could depend on. I had a sneaking suspicion the two had run off together a long time ago and were now downing drinks with umbrellas while they lounged on a beach somewhere exotic and peaceful.

Premise/plot: Glass Slippers, Ever After, and Me is a light-hearted romance novel. The heroine, Charlotte Kingsley, is a writer. Her dream is to be PUBLISHED of course. But after yet another brutal rejection (all rejections are brutal no matter how civil the wording), she writes a NONFICTION self-help book instead of another fairy-tale romance. That book, the "rant" as her neighbor believes it to be, is NOT rejected. But the terms under which it is published leave a little to be desired. For Charlotte will have to BECOME the person people expect her to be. Her Swedish neighbor, Anders, is NOT pleased that his absolute best friend (and possible love of his life) is changing EVERYTHING about herself in order to fit a mold that the publisher dictates. Everything from who she can friend or follow on social media, what she can post, what she can share, how she dresses, who she can be seen with, the furnishings of her apartment. It is all so EXTREME. Is she losing herself to get the happily ever after ending that she's always wanted?

My thoughts: I am Team Anders on this one. I don't know if I was supposed to be. Oh, it's fairly obvious that Anders is the love interest. But when it comes to all the changes they are demanding of her--from her--I am Team Anders. It seemed all kinds of WRONG that a writer would have to essentially change everything about herself in order to be liked by potential readers. I hope this aspect of the story is pure FICTION. I would hate to think that this kind of thing happens in the real world.

As for the romance, I definitely enjoyed this one. 


© 2019 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

2 comments:

Lark said...

I love that first sentence! This one sounds like fun. :)

Anonymous said...

I like the sounds of this one!