This book reads like a chick-flick—delightful and enjoyable, but it doesn’t have too much substance. It made me very happy to read, but the only thoughts I went away with were of self-fulfilling prophecies and how we create our own futures.

In this semi-fantastical world, love charms actually work and Zita’s prophecies, available for residents of Grimbaud annually, predict the future. Fallon is stuck with a prophecy that condemns her to a life without love. This book centres on her dealing with this prophecy and on the group of students who begins researching other love charms to try and figure out if there’s a way out of their futures.

Grimbaud as a setting could be better expanded. It’s very intangible, as we have no idea what continent it’s on or time period it’s in. I’d like to know a little more about if this is a futuristic Earth or if this is just a country in an alternate world. The magic realism is unusual and sometimes hard to follow as there’s very little magic and I almost expect more to make it believable. A lot of people have strange names. While we’re able to suspend disbelief for the magic love charms and such, one aspect that’s not entirely believable is that parents are okay with their kids living in seemingly unsupervised dorms at the age of fifteen. This seems like more of a college environment.

Fallon seems very mature for her age, but she’s a very relatable character. Most people can relate to the idea of having no hope for love. Her determination makes her likable. She and Bastion have an interesting relationship that I was excited to see play out. At points, this book is very cinematic in an effective way. We see characters realise something and make a decision to go somewhere. This keeps suspense high.

In general, this book is fun and easy to read and flows quickly. The plot holds its own and is intriguing throughout. ( )

This review originally posted at The Children's Book and Media Review

Fallon Dupree is excited to go to high school because she knows that when she is in the town of Grimbaud she’ll be able to follow a love fortune that is 100% accurate. When her fortune tells her that she will never find love, she is surprised and devastated. Fallon isn’t the only student with a terrible fortune, however. She becomes part of a rebellion that wants to overthrow the power of Zita’s famous love charms to give everyone a chance at love. She works with Sebastian, a boy known as the ultimate heartbreaker, to discover the secret’s behind Zita’s power and to fight to find Love.

The book is cute, but often unrealistic about how people would behave. It contains many typical tropes (such as the male love interest smirking in every interaction). Some of the motivations behind the characters in the rebellion are unclear and the characters themselves are underdeveloped. However, the setting is interesting and the idea is whimsical. Fallon’s obsession with things being just right in food and clothing is a unique character detail that is not often seen in fiction. The book does have positive messages about being willing to fight for what you want, especially when it has to do with love. For someone who doesn’t mind unrealistic plots and wants a light read, this book might satisfy a thirst for a little bit of love and romance in a story. ( )

This was one of those books that nobody can quite put in a genre. Almost satirical, almost mystery, mostly chick flick. I greatly enjoyed the writing and the characters, and the romance was definitely swoon-worthy. ;P I would probably think it worth the buy if you're into interesting set-ups and adorable couples. ( )

Check out this review and more at http://southernbredsouthernread.blogspot.com/2015/08/love-fortunes-and-other-dis...

I really don’t know how to rate this book, so I needed a few days to think it over and decide for sure. Here I am a few days later, and I am still not settled. Basically with this book, you get exactly what you think you are going to get. The cover is very quirky and whimsical, and the writing is very light and easy to read. The story line is easy to follow, and it really doesn’t require a whole lot of thinking to process (which is just what you sometimes need!).

I really liked the main character, Fallon. She is very prim and proper and seems like the kind of gal that irons her socks. She isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, but definitely prefers order in her life. She is referred to as having a “princess” personality, but she refers to herself as more of a “chamber-maid” rather than a princess. It takes quite a while for the romance between her and Sebastian to warm up because she knows the type of guy that he has (and he definitely has a reputation) and she knows that she isn’t down for it. She evolves quite a bit from beginning to end. At the beginning, when she receives her fortune, she feels like it is written in stone and there is no hope. By the end, she is taking charge and changing everyone’s “fate.” It was really fun to watch her progress.

There were a lot of cliche characters that I went back and forth between hating and loving them. First of all, the entire premise of this book is centered around getting a fortune that tells you when you are going to meet your One True Love. If you are dealt a bad hand and aren't destined to find love then you get stuck in The Spinsters or the Bachelors. A big part of the book focuses on The Spinsters and The Bachelors, who are the people who are fated to never find love. For example, The Spinsters literally have tons of cats and hang out in a big communal room that smells like moth balls and read romance novels. It's all just a bit too much, so I was rolling my eyes through all of that. Also, Sebastian, Fallon's love interest, is your typical playboy. The girls around campus call him Bastion when they come wailing outside of his dorm window after he breaks their heart. It's laid on very thick. I get the scene Karalius was setting with all of it, but it was just a bit much.



What I really struggle with is that even though the book is very fun to read and a very quick read (I finished it in under three hours), it is just SO predictable. You know exactly what is going to happen from the beginning and there are really no surprises. It got a bit boring because it was so predictable, but I still pressed through and finished even though I feel like I probably could have read every other page and still kept up. I just don’t know if I would recommend this one, because of how boring it turns out. There are so many great contemporary books out there that dabble in fantasy, so it’s just hard for me to tell people to read one that is so-so. I’ve said it before, but I am usually a huge fan of books published through Swoon Reads, but these last few books have really just missed the mark. I wanted a fun, easy read and that is exactly what I got. It’s kind of like going to the grocery store and choosing plain vanilla cake with vanilla frosting versus going to a bakery and choosing a vanilla cake with lemon curd filling with whipped frosting topped with fresh organic berries that were picked from the garden outside the window. Honestly, I kind of pictured the book in my head in a Tim Burton-esque Alice in Wonderland way. I pictured myself wearing the heart shaped rose colored glasses that are mentioned in the book while envisioning the story.
( )

This book had me hooked from the very first sentence, and it kept me going all the way to the end. It's quirky and unpredictable, with just a touch of fantasy in an otherwise realistic setting: Love Fortunes, which anyone can pay to receive, and they are never wrong. This is the story of what happens when a handful of young people receive Love Fortunes that they don't like, and they decide to change the future instead of accepting fate. ( )