Adams, Luci. Not That Kind of Ever After. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2023. ISBN 9781250842206.

***

Bella is in a snit that her best friend and roommate Ellie is marrying Mark, who Bella thinks is boring and unlikeable. She says it out loud one too many times and creates a rift. She finds some solace in posting about a date gone bad on a confessional creative writing website, giving her story of woe a fairy tale theme, and B.Enchanted is born. At the encouragement of Ellie’s serial dater brother Marty, she tries to take his advice and just have fun instead of looking for the one, but tries to fit subsequent dates to the fairy tale theme as well. The reworkings are very clever and the stories entertaining.

While there is a lot of hilarity, there is a lot of immaturity as well (for starters, straight out hating the man who makes her best friend happy because she thinks he’s dull), and Bella’s stream of conscious narrative can be too minutely detailed. Still, she experiences character growth and makes appropriate apologies and reparations, and the happily ever after is sweet and fitting.

I received a free advance reader’s review copy of #NotThatKindofEverAfter from #NetGalley.