Lauren Palphreyman – A Keyboard and an Open Mind

Title: Cupid’s Match
Author: Lauren Palphreyman
Genre: Urban fantasy/romance
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 07/07/19 – 15/07/19
Rating: ★★★

Review:

I am a fan of ancient-gods-in-modern-times type stories, so I was definitely interested when I saw this one available on Netgalley. Is one of those books where I really enjoyed parts of it, but there were other aspects I had qualms about, enough to affect my enjoyment.

The romance is where I felt the book’s main strength lay. While I did actually spend a fair chunk thinking/hoping it was going to take a different direction, it built the relationship between Lila and Cupid quite well. They had a decent amount of chemistry and there was certainly some entertaining banter between them.

I did feel some of the plotting was a bit weak. For example, after a character jumps off a building in the height of passion (don’t worry, he survives), rather than being completely horrified and upset, his classmates all decide they should still go to a house party that night as planned, because… it’s whathe would have wanted or something? (Or, because the author needed the characters to be at that party, because it was plot relevant, regardless of whether it made sense.)

The policy documents for the Cupid Matchmaking Agency, supposedly written two or three millenia ago, were written in modern-day corporate speak, which was amusing, but didn’t make much sense. And in her nightmare world, Pandora faces off with physical manifestations of the Seven Deadly Sins, a Christian construct.

The book does rely on the main character being kept in the dark about certain things until the other characters are ready for her to know and that got a bit tedious at times. Once that reveal came about, did enjoy the build up to the climax, even if the day seemed a little too easily won in the end.

Look, basically, this is one of those books that’s fine and entertaining for a while but ultimately not that memorable.

(Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review)

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It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

What have you recently finished reading?

After taking a month to get through one audio book, I finished two this week! First was Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray. I didn’t love it as much as the first book but it definitely had its moments. Haven’t decided whether to continue the series on audio or grab the paperback of Book 3.

Next, I listened to The Nowhere Emporium by Ross McKenzie, which was a sort of middle-grade version of The Night Circus. I tend to enjoy anything that’s full of whimsical magic rooms, so I enjoyed this one.

No physical books finished this week but I did post my review for Beau and Bett by Kathryn Berla. Click the title to read it.

What are you currently reading?

I am about halfway through the ARC of Mother Tongue by Julie Mayhew. It’s well-written but not the easiest read so I am taking a bit of a break from it.

In the meantime, I am reading Cupid’s Match by Lauren Palphreyman, which… I mean. I can see why mythology purists are upset about it. But I’m just enjoying it for what it is. I’m not even sure I’m really seeing it as a mythological-characters-in-the-modern-day story so much as a general urban fantasy. It’s fun.

What do you think you will read next?

After promising last week that I would finally continue with The Chronicles of Narnia, I have The Horse and His Boy audio book from the library and ready to be copied onto my phone. Just need to get around to it.