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A review by meganpbennett
By the Book by Jasmine Guillory
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I loved The Wedding Date series by Jasmine Guillory, and Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorite Disney movies as a kids, so I was really excited when I saw that this book was coming out. And I adored about 85-90% of By the Book.
It was a fun modern take on Beauty and the Beast, though there were bits that seemed forced, as though Disney Press was unwilling to let us forget for even a paragraph that this was a modern take on their movie version of Beauty and the Beast. Michaela being called "Kettle" is one of them and Izzy's room that may or may not be magical is another.
But those were relatively easy to overlook. My issue is with the ending, as it seemed that too much action was stuffed into about 40 pages, when it needed about 80 pages to do what it needed to do.
It's not just this book; I've noticed that it's become a very common trope in romance novels, that everything is going really smoothly, and then, with about 50 pages to go, everything happens at once, without enough pages remaining to solve everything. I've read books that condense it down into 10 or even 5 pages, which is most assuredly not enough pages. It feels like the publishers want angst and conflict in their stories, and tell the author to add some, right at the end. But there's almost never enough time to explore that conflict, and get it worked out to be reasonable within the context of the story.
And those rushed endings always effect how I rate books, as they take away from the story, and cause me to take a full star off of my original rating
It was a fun modern take on Beauty and the Beast, though there were bits that seemed forced, as though Disney Press was unwilling to let us forget for even a paragraph that this was a modern take on their movie version of Beauty and the Beast. Michaela being called "Kettle" is one of them and Izzy's room that may or may not be magical is another.
But those were relatively easy to overlook. My issue is with the ending, as it seemed that too much action was stuffed into about 40 pages, when it needed about 80 pages to do what it needed to do.
It's not just this book; I've noticed that it's become a very common trope in romance novels, that everything is going really smoothly, and then, with about 50 pages to go, everything happens at once, without enough pages remaining to solve everything. I've read books that condense it down into 10 or even 5 pages, which is most assuredly not enough pages. It feels like the publishers want angst and conflict in their stories, and tell the author to add some, right at the end. But there's almost never enough time to explore that conflict, and get it worked out to be reasonable within the context of the story.
And those rushed endings always effect how I rate books, as they take away from the story, and cause me to take a full star off of my original rating
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Racism, Grief, and Death of parent