Review: It had such promise...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 18, 2012
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book for an honest review.I started out liking this book - really, really liking it. It was going to be a four-star book at least. I was laughing in all the right places. And, although I thought it was kind of odd that Elly's grandmother would run off and leave her at the café by herself that quickly, I went along with it for the sake of the story. There is such a thing as "suspension of disbelief."From that almost stellar beginning, though, things went downhill very quickly. The friend - her best friend - who gets so flustered by a handsome guy (who she sees every day, just looks at as a brother, and tries to fix up with Elly) that she gives him another customer's food (which just happens to be doused with a major love potion).And, of course, Elly and the dreamboat start dating, but when they're on their first date, she tells him, "Tell me about yourself. I don't know anything." And he says he owns a farm - which is fine, except for the fact that they've already talked about his farm - eight pages earlier. They treat it like it's completely new information, but it's not. And the same sort of thing happens in Elly's conversations with Tom, the magic authority. I just don't understand. It seems that the author couldn't remember what she'd written from one day to the next (which, admittedly, does happen), but she didn't go back to read through it? A better editor would have been able to catch that and fix it.And then there was that intriguing conversation with the weird drunk guy mumbling about "bad people in town" in the middle of the book. Sadly, it never really seemed to go anywhere - unless he was just referring to Rory's ex, Kim, but she wasn't all that bad, and the way he said it made me expect more. ... Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part. It was a strange bit of "foreshadowing" that, in my opinion, didn't really work.Okay, and let's not leave out the absolutely ridiculous ending! Who's Elly going to end up with? The dreamboat she's been obsessed with since Day One and with whom she doesn't really have that much in common, or the magic inspector that she flirts with (and kisses) right in front of dreamboat and shares much more of substance? Guess.There were some great bits toward the end (as there were in the beginning) that made me smile for all the right reasons, but there were many more parts that had me rolling my eyes and screaming at the computer screen (yes, I did say screaming). So did I like this book? I'm not sure. Yes and no, with a little more emphasis on the "No." If I could give this book two and half stars, I would, but I can't, so I'll just round up for the sake of generosity.