Title: Enchanted
Author: Alethea Kontis
Synopsis:
It isn’t easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.
When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises.
The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past – and hers?
This novel… It was like the regurgitation of every other fairytale known to man. When I read the synopsis, I thought:
Yeah… I got that… but I also got…
And a lot of these:
Basically, this author thought that one fairytale wasn’t enough, no. Instead, she just stuck a bunch together and made ’em pop up randomly throughout the book.
Another thing I didn’t love about the book was the insta-love. After spending like one hour with said frog prince, she falls in love with him, instantly assumes he’s human in some way, and finds that he’s like her new bestest friend ever. And it’s just like … no.
There’s also a lot of evil fairy, nice fairy, surprise fairy, and all that, and it’s just like … no.
Think all of those fairytales above mixed with a large amount of YA fey mythological stuff all kind of rolled up and forced to fit together.
The characters were interesting (they’d have been a lot more interesting if there wasn’t a million of them… I mean, they’re the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter, or whatever, but on top of that there’s like three brothers, and a royal palace of people….). I liked one character, and everyone thought she was insane… The prince’s name bugged me, but I could live with it… and I liked Trix, Velius, and Erik (i.e. the three main supporting characters) more than the main ones…
Speaking of this main character, she left nothing to mystery. Instead, within, like, the first 20 pages, you know the name of every single one of her family members, what they do, what their specialty is, what she does, why her family hates the royal family, some stuff about fairies and how they work, the king, someone’s father, and this frog who’s her new best friend. TA-DA.
Honestly, this book would be so much better if the author stuck to one fairytale and expanded and worked at it to make it something amazing.
Plot: 2/5
Characters: 3/5
World Building: 2.5/5
Cover: 4.5/5
Overall: 2/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.70/5
Quotes:
“Your fey cousin here has the miraculous ability to hold his liquor–and mine, and yours, and the king’s, and half the country’s, I expect.”
“No,” Wednesday agreed. “You have tortured with silence. You let her grieve for a soul she did not lose, mourn a heart that should not have broken, and berate herself for betraying the man she loves…with the man she loves. It can’t be ‘true’ love without the truth, Rumbold.”
“May we all be doomed to a happy life.”
Between Printed Pages 