#and i don't like repetitive things past a certain point. i know where every enemy in this stage is now. i don't want to hit them anymore.

[vulpinesaint]

bloodborne as a game really is tailor made for me. fought the bloodstarved beast today and like. man. yeah. that fucks. and then got to the healing church with the constant ominous choral background as you go through the cathedral all covered in blood... i mean you guys know me. stuff to make me go insane

[booksandel]

The Charmed List Reviewed

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Charmed List by Julie Abe follows Ellie Kobata, a magical teenage wallflower who does not want to be a wallflower anymore. Ellie makes an anti-wallflower list that she hopes to accomplish on her road trip with her non-magical best friend Lia this summer. Only, a mishap with her ex-friend now enemy Jack Yasuda causes Ellie to majorly mess up and now she is stuck on a new magical road trip with none other than Jack. Can Ellie finish her anti-wallflower list while her and Jack confront their past together?

Review:

A cute contemporary romance whose added fantasy elements make this a fun ride.

I have to say, especially as someone who does not pick up contemporary romance let alone YA contemporary romance, this really surprised me. I didn't expect anything bad of course but I didn't expect how much fun I would have reading this. Though, as always with romance, the ending was not my favorite here, this was still a very great YA.

The character of Ellie had such a distinct voice and you really feel for her throughout the text. Not only because of her past with Jack but also because of her general character arc. She goes through what every teen goes through: trying to figure out what the heck you want to be and how the fits in with who you've been previously. Her arc is slow and steady but beautiful by the end. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the cast of characters but in comparison with how well Ellie is crafted, I feel like most of the other characters fall pretty flat. They aren't badly written but since we are so focused on just Ellie's journey here, the rest of the characters only serve their purpose for Ellie's journey and feel a bit stunted after that. Granted, Ellie and Jack are pretty secluded for the majority of this so I understand why that happened and you might not even notice the flatness of other characters because you'll be so entranced by everything else going on.

Which brings me to this: the atmosphere blew me away in this book. I won't lie, at first the magical elements really threw me for a loop since they are not integrated in the best way in the first 30% but as the book progresses, the magical fantasy aspects to this really change the way you imagine the setting here. I tend to get a little bored with contemporary romances if the tension dies or the characters don't have more going on than just the romance; in YA romance, where the audience is younger and the romance is more chaste, this can happen a lot for me. But here, I was not bored at any moment because the fantasy elements eventually mixed with the mundane beautifully. Especially once we get to see the magic in its full glory, the atmosphere shifts, and you are sucked into Ellie and Jack's trip.

Frankly, this atmosphere building is needed because the plot can meander a little, especially once Jack and Ellie get on the road. Part of this is because they are on the road to this convention and the only plot point you know is coming is their budding romance. Given that this romance is SLOW and goes from ex-best friends to enemies to maybe more, it can take a while for things to progress so you are left just going along on this road trip with them. At certain points, the internal struggle for Ellie gets a bit repetitive since she is consistently reminding us of other plot points moving along off-page. However, she doesn't get updated that often about them so we are left with the same questions from Ellie over and over about what is going on back home. These things make for a less than exciting plot but really I expected that since the main drive here is Ellie's relationships, making this more of a character-driven novel with the main plot focusing on the road trip. Road trip books tend to lose me because of their distinctly simple plot (unless the trip takes more detours than the Odyssey). Even so, this book kept me entertained the whole way due to its beautiful crafting of the magical elements here.

The pacing here was a good even pace. Slow at parts, faster in others, as the narrative demanded. The dialogue felt appropriate for a teen audience and excelled at making them sound like teens. But I do have to say that the many pop culture references sometimes took me out of the story. The only ones that felt seamlessly integrated were the book references. Mostly because they fit into the mundane and magical aspects of the book great where others felt weird next to the fantasy components of the books.

Some last things of note: the book definitely feels like the next cute rom-com given the timeless tropes it uses while feeling fresh and new with the cozy fantasy elements. Though, the ending felt a little less climactic than I expected. I personally think this may be because I wanted more from the resolution and I think Jack's feelings and emotions are a lot less visible than Ellie's so his motives and actions at the end feel too little and too fast all at the same time. But even so, I loved the feeling of the book. I enjoyed it and was happy to keep picking it back up until I finished flying through it.

It definitely teetered between 3 and 4 stars for the majority of the time, but ultimately, it was too cute and fun to not give 4. Especially considering I am not the intended audience here, I could see this being a bigger hit for teens so it felt like a deserved 4 stars.

Check out an abridged version of this review on my goodreads.

And don't forget to pre-order or buy the book on Tuesday, July 7th, 2022!

Find the book: Goodreads | Storygraph | B&N

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