This was an amazing book, and I am so happy that I found it at a bookstore. It had its ups and downs, but in overall it was a terrific book with great and fun characters and a good story.

The book starts off when Elise and her family move to LA, they move into a super rich private school, and as you can imagine that is quite awkward. She isn't wearing the latest clothes, doesn't have the fanciest cars, and her parents are just ordinary, unlike the other students' parents.
I was a bit worried that she might want to change and suddenly become a snob or try to fit in desperately. I even thought she would kiss up any celeb's butt, as many at the school do. However, Elise turns out to be totally different and if I have to be honest, totally kick-ass. Not once is she fazed or bedazzled by the celeb-factor nor does she try to change her style. She just stays herself. And yes, she makes mistakes, she does some stupid things, but all in all I just love the girl and how normal she stayed.

The first part of the book is mostly about her and Derek and also Webster. It is kind of a love triangle, but also not, because for that I would have to say that all three of them are in love, the guys with the girl and the girl with both boys. However, Elise is pretty pissy at Derek (but he deserves that) and she really likes Webster.
Elise's behaviour during this part, well, let me just say it annoyed me. I can imagine, she being totally new, that the way Derek treated Webster might have been not very nice, and might have sparked some flames of hatred towards Derek, but I wish she had just also looked around her. Because, after a while, we do find out what Webster did, and well...
The second part is mostly about Derek and Elise and how they treat each other, and it also brings some really nice moments. Of course, no spoilers, but believe me, oh my, it was nice.

The story itself was really cute, and while I can imagine that the battles between Elise and Derek might get annoying, I like them. They gave the book the extra spark. I was often just screaming at my book: Just kiss already!
The story also brought several other things with it, including prejudice, teenagers and their moods (what is up with Layla?), sketchy characters, and that not everything is what it seems.

I didn't like the mother of the sisters. Dear Lord, what a horrendous parent that woman is. Totally judging her daughters when they are around movie stars, but as soon as she sees one, she starts flirting, talking to them in some kind of super sweet tone and much much more. It just disgusted me. She was such a hypocrite. I also didn't like how she kept pushing Derek and Elise together.

Another thing that was a bit bleh, and also something I generally don't want in my books, is the instalove that happened between Elise's older sister, Juliana, and Chase. Seriously, these 2 characters just knew each other and were insta in love, insta boy/girlfriend, and it was just a bit too much.
Later though I loved them as a couple and they were really really adorable, and thankfully I didn't have to worry about Chase, I was worried he would just use her and then dump her, but he is the sweetest and greatest guy ever.

The last two characters I want to discuss are Chelsea and Layla. It won't be long, I don't want to waste time on those 2. Chelsea was a horrendous viper who deserved what she got. Too bad the whole thing with Layla was pretty much unsolved. She was a horrendous girl in the whole book, manipulating her way around and doing all sorts of bad things, and then in the ending that happened? I just don't believe it. AT ALL.

The romance was amazing and I just loved, I was truly cheering for the people in this book. :) And at the ending I was just swooning!

I am also happy that the author brought that character in the spotlight, I was worried we wouldn't see them, but we did! And they were even better than the second-hand accounts we heard from people.

But even with those things I mentioned, I can't give this book less than 5 stars. This book just pulled me in, showed me lovely scenes, nasty scenes, great and bad characters and it was just such an amazing mix that every time I had to put the book down to do something (because life continues), I just could feel it calling for me and telling to get back and read more!

Review first posted at http://twirlingbookprincess.com/

4.25 stars

I'm not sure what it was about this. The storyline and characters...or how closely it resembled Pride and Prejudice (I'm thinking of the film: the Keira Knightley one since it's the only one I've seen). But I really liked it. In fact I pretty much devoured it.

It was definitely a fun young adult, modernised version and I wouldn't mind reading more like this or more books by the author.

I'm liking this. You can see the similarities between this and Pride & Prejudice :D

UGH!!!This totally back fired!

Let me explain:
I am super busy and wanted to listen to something light and fun while I work in the studio.. but also getting my my cute&fluffy fix for the weekend. I was hoping to find a new series to listen to so I could fill my studio time with some cute&fluffy, light fun for the next week.
I got this as an audio-expecting a fluffy romance.
But what I got instead was, well annoying.

I couldn't relate to ANY character, there was also no character growth. In short the character building was lacking at best. Each character was so cliche, so predictable that they actually grated on my nerves.

The story line, well I kinda expected predictable- its a romance you know, so it comes with the territory. But I was wrong- it wasn't just predictable it was boring. VERY boring.

The worst thing though- the dialogues. They felt stiff, recycled and half the time just annoyed me.
Though the writing style is not completely terrible, I am not a fan of it. It felt woody and unimaginative at times at other times it was repetitive and felt like Landon was trying to hard.

The only part of this book I thought was actually any good was the smut! Yes, exactly! The SMUT- the only redeeming feature. Which is why this has 1,5Stars. 

The narrator was ok. Honestly I would have DNFed if I would have read this myself. I am not sure, if I would recommend the narrator, since I didn't like the book. I think she made the reading more bearable, but I also have heard better narrations.

This book is to cliche and unimaginative for my tastes and it is the perfect example about everything I dislike in a romance novel. Well, except for that smut. That was actually quite yummy. Which is besides the point. Back to the issue at hand: My tenuous relationship with the genre has just been set back by at least ten books. I am not even sure I wanna dare reading or listening to anything in the genre for the foreseeable future.

I don't know if I should just ignore this and jump right back into cute and fluffy- cause I definitely didn't get my cutesy fix or if I should just go back to fantasy. Thing is instead of ranting right now, I really should be working. BUT Weekends Required just totally messed up my audio plans and my happy vibe. I am now forced to scour Audible for something to fix the mess my cute&fluffy fail has caused.

Wish me luck or even better send me recommendations for really good audiobooks that I might like!

Needles to say I wont be going on with this series.

I immediately jumped into My Epic Fairy Tale Fail after I finished My Very Unfairy Tale Life. I was really excited to accompany Jenny again to one of her adventures. In this second book, Jenny was assigned to go to the Land of Tales to help stop a nasty witch from draining all the magic of the land.

Just like the first book, My Epic Fairy Tale Fail offers another humorous and refreshing story. In the Land of Tales, Jenny were introduced to a new set of characters who are already familiar to us like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, Nessie the Lochness Monster, Sleeping Beauty and the Hansel and Gretel witch. What’s good is that Anna gave a new take to these characters which brought things to a whole new level of fun. Add the fact that there’s a significant development to Jenny’s character. She became sort of mature but still retained her spunk. But what really made me happy is that her friends, Trish, Melissa and Anthony the Gnome really joined on in the fun. Thumbs up to Anna for remembering these characters in this second book. They were really left out in the first book.

I also appreciated the fact that the villain of this book is a female. And the good thing is, she’s not the stereotype old hag witch. Anna really made a lot of effort to ensure that the overall series does not join the trope of fairy tales that saturated the market today.

Aside from the characters, My Epic Fairy Tale Fail has a lot of improvement when it comes to the plot. Compared to the first book, this one has a lot of story to tell particularly that it involved Jenny discovering a secret that could be the answer to her ultimate desire and trying to outlast a wicked witch. Though predictable, it was still interesting to read with its fast paced action sprinkled with fun moments and of course, lessons in life.

The world building also saw a significant development but I must say that it was still lacking. I expect more like maps and a bigger world instead of giving me this impression that the Land of Tales is just a subdivision where everything is a 15-20 minute walk.

Overall, My Epic Fairy Tale Fail is a perfect sequel to My Very Unfairy Tale Life. It wrapped up some of the loose ends of the first book and brought something new to the series whilst maintaining the main theme of the story. It’s definitely an innovator instead of a maintainer. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend My Epic Fairy Tale Fail to all Middle Grade book lovers.