Advance Review of Kimberly Karalius' Love Fortunes & Other Disasters
Release Date: May 12th, 2015
Synopsis as found on GoodReads.com:
In the tradition of Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic, one girl chooses to change her fortune and her fate by falling in love.
Love is real in the town of Grimbaud, and Fallon Dupree has dreamed of attending high school there for years. After all, generations of Duprees have successfully followed the (100% accurate!) love fortunes from Zita’s famous Love Charms Shop to happily marry their high school sweethearts. It’s a tradition. So she is both stunned and devastated when her fortune states that she will NEVER find love.
Fortunately, Fallon isn’t the only student with a terrible love fortune, and a rebellion is brewing. Fallon is determined to take control of her own fate—even if it means working with a notorious heartbreaker like Sebastian.
Will Fallon and Sebastian be able to overthrow Zita’s tyranny and fall in love?
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Okay... So my advance read is actually 2 weeks after the book came out, but seeing as how the version I read was an Advanced Copy, I went ahead and counted it as such.
A group of people from work had planned on reading this book, because the author is doing a signing at the Barnes & Noble where I work in Wesley Chapel, Florida the beginning of next month. In normal circumstances, I would probably not have picked up this book. By what the synopsis has written, I gathered that this book was teen fiction. I only read regular teen fiction if a friend tells me I have to pick it up or if the movie version of the book is being released. I am a fan of some form of fantasy. Little did I know, this book had a bit of fantasy to spare.
I will start by saying that this book is much different than I expected. I did expect teen angst and got it in spades, but I didn't know that there would be some form of magic involved. The preface of the book has Love (Cupid would be a more common name for the character) in the flesh on earth. That alone showed me that this book was more than it was packaged as being. Although that character is not in the majority of the book, from that first taste, you know that there is going to be something fantastical.
Not only do the characters in this story rely on the fortunes given to them from a coin operated machine attached to a Love Charm shop, but they alter their entire lives based on the fortunes they receive. When the main character receives a fortune she never expected, with the help of a ragtag team of characters, she sets out to change her fate. I think that the author really fleshed out a few of the characters, but multiple of them were unrelatable and could have used more spotlight. Maybe this is a chance for novellas to be released on eReaders so that we the readers can get a better feel for them.
While I would not have initially picked this book up without nudging from a friend, I am very happy I read it. I don't see it as becoming a series, because Karalius did have a very cut and dry ending, but I am interested in what she writes in the future.
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