3.5/5 🦄
Cupid’s Match
*Movie announcer voice* In a world, where cupids run a matchmaking service, one high school girl...is repeatedly solicited by letters, emails, and various spam about her match?
As far-fetched as it seems, that is what happens to Lila. Which is how she ends up learning that her one true match is none other than...*spoiler alert if you really didn’t pay attention to the title!* CUPID! Yes, that Cupid, son of Venus. Unfortunately, cupids can’t be matched. It’s against company policy. *cue battle between forces of good and evil* In the end, it’s Lila’s life on the line, and the question of whether she and Cupid will complete their match.
Overall the concept is pretty darn cute! I was expecting more of a Cupid and Psyche retelling which this is not, but it has its sweet moments and lots of popular mythology for those who dabble in classics. This is definitely a YA/early teen book—I’d say an age range of 12-16 year olds would most appreciate this story.
The things I liked are the overall concept and the last 15% of the book, where a lot of the action is. The use of popular myths was fun if brief. I had a lot more issues with this book than things I liked. The characterizations were very shallow, so I expected more of a plot driven book...which was also not what happened. What I think happened with this book is that it was short and someone tried to stretch it out into a fuller novel without taking the time to really invest in the writing process. There are obvious signs of the author trying to delay to create anticipation but all it did was make the book feel loooooonnnngggg. The relationships were all shallowly developed, which is basically antithetical to Romance, even if it is YA. When we start getting cool mythological figures that would actually be worth spending time on, they are off before we get much of anything. It seems as though the beginning and end were written at the same pace and the middle was sort of lengthened and patched together haphazardly until it reached typical YA novel length. This book has all the makings for a great YA romance but fell short in execution. Another good, not great read in my book.
Cupid’s Match
*Movie announcer voice* In a world, where cupids run a matchmaking service, one high school girl...is repeatedly solicited by letters, emails, and various spam about her match?
As far-fetched as it seems, that is what happens to Lila. Which is how she ends up learning that her one true match is none other than...*spoiler alert if you really didn’t pay attention to the title!* CUPID! Yes, that Cupid, son of Venus. Unfortunately, cupids can’t be matched. It’s against company policy. *cue battle between forces of good and evil* In the end, it’s Lila’s life on the line, and the question of whether she and Cupid will complete their match.
Overall the concept is pretty darn cute! I was expecting more of a Cupid and Psyche retelling which this is not, but it has its sweet moments and lots of popular mythology for those who dabble in classics. This is definitely a YA/early teen book—I’d say an age range of 12-16 year olds would most appreciate this story.
The things I liked are the overall concept and the last 15% of the book, where a lot of the action is. The use of popular myths was fun if brief. I had a lot more issues with this book than things I liked. The characterizations were very shallow, so I expected more of a plot driven book...which was also not what happened. What I think happened with this book is that it was short and someone tried to stretch it out into a fuller novel without taking the time to really invest in the writing process. There are obvious signs of the author trying to delay to create anticipation but all it did was make the book feel loooooonnnngggg. The relationships were all shallowly developed, which is basically antithetical to Romance, even if it is YA. When we start getting cool mythological figures that would actually be worth spending time on, they are off before we get much of anything. It seems as though the beginning and end were written at the same pace and the middle was sort of lengthened and patched together haphazardly until it reached typical YA novel length. This book has all the makings for a great YA romance but fell short in execution. Another good, not great read in my book.