Before now, I haven’t really posted many, if any at all, negative reviews on this blog. If I DNF a book, I don’t really feel like I should review it. But when I’ve received a book as an ARC…I should probably still be talking about them.
How To Survive A Modern-Day Fairy Tale is a romance novel that sounded a lot of fun. It follows Claire, a Filipino-American bookworm who decorates cookies as a side hustle and likes to please her family. When she meets Nate, a handsome billionaire, she’s instantly attracted to him, and after he rushes her off to Paris, she has to try to figure out her way around their relationship.
I loved the idea of this book. I love fairytales and romance, so seeing a modern heroine trying to find her way around that sounded fun. This book started off strong with Claire visiting her Grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s in hospital. As someone who had a grandparent that unfortunately suffered from the same thing, I know how hard it can be. I loved how much she cared about her Grandma, but I get why she was so frustrated too.
Unfortunately, I grew tired of this book only a few chapters in. I was excited to meet Nate and see what this Prince Charming was like. Sadly, all I saw was a lot of red flags. Like, I was 30% in, and there was A Lot. I’m not kidding. You’re told about him whisking her to Paris in the summary, though that was a little weird. However, him buying her dresses and getting her to wear them, getting a relative to look after her grandma, finding her on a dating app she just joined that he owns and finding his way to her apartment when she hadn’t invited him over after reading her address on a blank cheque. So much about it was creepy, and I didn’t want to see them get to the happily ever after, and that’s a problem.
I guess these are all examples of Nate being a really nice guy. Like he has money and all these businesses, and he’s so spoiling Claire. He doesn’t know her though. They’ve barely met, and he’s basically forcing her way into his life and it kind of creeped me out. Plus, Claire was keeping it from her family, which is kind of risky.
The writing style was okay. It wasn’t amazing, but it meant I was able to get in as far as I was. I respected Claire in a lot of ways. She wants to work on her business and help her family and everything, which is all great. She’s just a bit too much of a pushover, and it was frustrating.
My biggest problem really was with the romance though. Usually, I’d end on a positive note, saying what kind of people would like the book. And with this book…I’m not sure. Check this book out if you’re curious about what I didn’t like, but I don’t think I can really recommend it.
Title: How To Survive A Modern-Day Fairy Tale
Author: Elle Cruz
Genre: Romance
Age Range: Adult
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Release Date: 30/11/21
BUY LINKS
Lace and Dagger Books 