Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Charmed by Chocolate (Love at the Chocolate Shop #6)Charmed by Chocolate by Steena Holmes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

[actual rating 2.75]

If you want a fluffy romance, this may be right up your alley. It just wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

We follow Leah, a tv figure on "Charmed" (similar to Bachelor), who is just getting over an overblown scandal. She returns back to Marietta for a break, and there gets reunited with her childhood best friend and her fierce grandmother. Obviously from the cover you can see that this book does have to do with baking and chocolates, which play a big role in the setting.

Personally though, I found a lot of things in this story extremely frustrating and annoying. For example, the MC best friend literally have ruined her life several times over; and I just wanted to shake the whole group and be like, stop treating Leah like sh*t and expecting something in return. Listen, I truly appreciate all type of female friendships, but not only was this one unhealthy, emotional manipulate/abusive, but Leah never addressed this issue. At some points it just seemed like she was a puppy to her friend, escalating between guilt and favors and I just couldn't deal with it. My favorite character was defectively Leah's Gram, who was fierce and stood up to Leah trying to show her reason and truth in the midst of a foggy to her situation.

Also a key thing in these types of romances that often gets played the wrong way, and in an endless cycle that I'm not always willing to get through is lack of communication. I swear this whole book could have been resolved in one chapter if the characters simply had a face-to-face conversation where they explained what had happened and what they were feeling. But that would be pointless, wouldn't it have been? Because that means that the author wouldn't have the chance to drag out the whole plot and tangle it with the trope of miscommunication.

One trope that I absolutely adored and will always love was childhood best friends turned to lovers. One trope that I absolutely hate is the concept of "soul mates" and everybody in the community loves it. A mix of salt and sugar was interspersed within this text, which made me want to continue. Also the fact that this is a fairly short read also made the book bearable enough to finish.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing with an e-arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.



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