Book Review: Fairy Godmothers, Inc.

Fairy Godmothers, Inc.
Saranna DeWylde

If a book could give a person diabetes, it is Fairy Godmothers, Inc. for the myriad of sugary sweets inside it, as well as a happy ending fit for a fairytale.

A solid 3.5 stars for me as readers are whisked into the ripped-from-the-fairytales, sugary town of Ever After, Missouri to follow the questionable love story of two former lovers as they unite to help their godmothers small business venture take off by staging a fake wedding. What happens when they’re both still in love?

The short version of things keeping this from a full 5 stars, a lot of telling over showing, hard to follow emotional whiplash, and simultaneously too much and too little happening. This is a book that didn’t get much more refinement after the initial pitch or blurb, and that was the big disappointment for me.

If love is the source of all the magic in the universe, and the town of Ever After, Missouri, is the epicenter of enchantment, then the locals are in dire need of a reboot. At least according to resident fairy godmothers Petunia, Jonquil, and Bluebonnet. Their solution? Blow a bit of fairy dust in the direction of those in need of romance…what could possibly go wrong?

SOME KIND OF AWFUL…
Lucky Fujiki’s first name is a cosmic joke. Her luck is so bad, even the number seven steers clear of her. But when her adorable godmothers ask for a favor, Lucky can’t say no–even if she can already feel the bad juju waiting to strike. And her mission is even worse than she imagined: to promote Ever After as a wedding destination by faking a marriage to her first love and long-time ex, Ransom Payne–he of the Embarrassing Incident that neither of them will ever live down…

OR ALL KINDS OF WONDERFUL?
Ransom Payne has spent years building an impressive new reputation for himself, and now his godmothers want him to pretend to wed the one girl he’d like most to forget? Sure, weddings in Ever After could be a huge boon for his chocolate business, but risking more up-close-and-personal time with Lucky? Considering the stakes, it’s a curse he’ll have to bear, at the risk of being humiliated–or perhaps, bewitched…

Goodreads blurb

I liked the premise for this novel, despite a large cast of named characters to remember, but found the execution of the book rather lacking. There are many instances of wasted page space reiterating telling moments, rather than progressing the plot– it felt like DeWylde got a little lost like her characters while writing this piece.

Lucky is rather bland and shallow despite supposedly being a world renowned artist, and she does little with these skills or have them influence the narrative style when it’s her chapters. In fact, her artistic ability is almost a throwaway line that comes very late in the book, as she’s so wrapped up in other things to have her own personality. Ransom is moderately more developed when compared to her, though the premise for his shame as “The Boy Who Missed” seems… implausible in so many ways. Successful men with money aren’t given monikers, especially ones from college days. I agree that the press can be unfair, especially towards celebrities, but this particular kind of cruelty is below them.

Therein lies my big problem with the book. Implausability. Obviously in a setting with magic and faeries, we can bend that a little, but the leaps and bounds DeWylde expects readers to tolerate was too much for me. Lucky’s bad luck is never fully explained or understood by any character, and there is no resolution with it either, not to mention the so-called “epiphanies” she has about herself, or Ransom about himself, do not feel earned in the slightest. Just circuitous thinking without any guiding feedback, where they somehow land on “I’m fully adjusted!” after a breakthrough. These are the foundational flaws these characters are built on, and it makes them fall flat instead of grow, not to mention the forced romance between them by the likes of the godmothers.

I saw the perfect opening for this story to have turned into a surprise sapphic romance, but DeWylde chugged through all that in favor of the “former lovers who aren’t over each other” trope. Not a bad trope by any means, but this story could have had so much more of an impact. Not to mention the disappointment of thinking this book was going to be at least steamy and getting some great indicators for it in the beginning, but then subsequent chickening out in favor of overly complicated internal and external melodrama with little pay off.

Overall, this book has a great cast of side characters, I just couldn’t find myself compelled to care too much about the main love story. I was really hoping for more meat to sink my teeth into, and it’s there with the magical and non-magical cast. I’m vastly more intrigued by the next book in the series, and will be reading it in hopes that this book is not indicative of DeWydle’s overall writing style. All things considered, this book is light and fluffy, but not my particular cup of tea. It is not worth skipping altogether, though if you’re looking for a sweet book break, and enjoying meddling extended family, I recommend Dial A for Aunties, and my current cozy mystery read Arsenic and Adobo (review to come) as better reads to try first.