Very cute :) ( )

Not the worst book i have read this year... But definitely top 10 worst..... ( )

This was just a typical cute teenage love story. Nothing especially original, but not terrible either. I liked the setting and the characters, but the romance was a tad bland. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: Adorable clean contemporary book that is sure to warm your hearts. It will take you back to your childhood dreams of being a princess.

Opening Sentence: There was no getting around the fact that Tinker Bell was a little bitch.

The Review:

Zoe is spending her summer where dreams come true. She has landed an internship at Fairyland Kingdom theme park. Everyone gets a role as some kind of fairytale character and there is a chance to win a $25,000 grant. Zoe is sure they made a mistake accepting her into the program because she’s not much of an actor and all the other interns are extremely good looking.

Zoe is cast as the “Lady in Waiting” to the Queen (the boss of fairyland). Zoe has to get up at the crack of dawn to walk the dog and she is running errands until she falls into bed every night. She is starting to feel a lot like the rejected sad version of Cinderella vs. the fairytale princess. There doesn’t seem to be much time to have fun and honestly she’s not sure if the money is worth all the work. But then a mysterious prince comes to her rescue and she is torn between being faithful to “The Queen” and protecting the boy she loves.

Zoe is a cute protagonist. A little over a year and a half ago her mother died from a long struggle with cancer. Zoe has very few memories before her mother got sick, but she does remember that her mother use to take her to Fairytale Kingdom. So in a way Zoe is hoping that this internship will help her to deal with her grief, and it also doesn’t hurt that all the guys look like Abercrombie models. She is sweet, loyal, and a genuine person. I had fun reading her story.

This was a really cute book. It was fresh, funny and full of likeable characters. The setting was interesting and overall the story was entertaining. The plot had a few twists that I wasn’t expecting and the romance was totally adorable. While there wasn’t anything profound in the story, it was a fun light read that was very enjoyable. Strohmeyer’s writing was engaging and easy to get lost in. I would recommend this to anyone that is looking for a clean fast read.

Notable Scene:

It was him.

“Don’t come any closer,” I said. “If I see you and know who you are, I’ll have no choice but to report you to the Queen.”

There was a pause. “So I guess saving your life was, what, chump change?”

“Please. I’ve put my ass on the line by not telling her what happened. I promised you I wouldn’t tell, and I haven’t.”

“Thanks. I’d hate to have to explain the whole story.”

Not that again. “Really, whoever you are, your puns are pun-ishment enough.”

FTC Advisory: Balzer + Bray/Harper Collins provided me with a copy of How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True is an adorable story. Zoe and her cousin are interns at a very Disney-esque theme park. Without giving away the plot completely, I will just say that the book is very similar to a story involving an oddly behaved and strangely attired proprietor of a chocolate factory. The major difference is that this involves fairy tale characters instead of chocolate. Because of the striking similarities, I was quite disappointed after I read this. (Actually, I was disappointed while I read it because the similarities made it so easy to predict what would happen.)

I know that it is almost impossible for people to have completely original ideas these days, but the similarities in this book and that classic piece of children's literature are disheartening. Maybe it was unintentional, but it was still alarming that no one seemed to notice that sometime before it was published. This story just made me feel very uneasy.

That being said, the writing was actually worthy of more than three stars. If the story had been more original, then I definitely would have rated it higher. ( )