Thank you to Quirk Books for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Goodreads Synopsis
Rosie Thorne is feeling stuck—on her college application essays, in her small town, and on that mysterious General Sond cosplayer she met at ExcelsiCon. Most of all, she’s stuck in her grief over her mother’s death. Her only solace was her late mother’s library of rare Starfield novels, but even that disappeared when they sold it to pay off hospital bills. On the other hand, Vance Reigns has been Hollywood royalty for as long as he can remember—with all the privilege and scrutiny that entails. When a tabloid scandal catches up to him, he's forced to hide out somewhere the paparazzi would never expect to find him: Small Town USA. At least there’s a library in the house. Too bad he doesn’t read. When Rosie and Vance’s paths collide and a rare book is accidentally destroyed, Rosie finds herself working to repay the debt. And while most Starfield superfans would jump at the chance to work in close proximity to the Vance Reigns, Rosie has discovered something about Vance: he’s a jerk, and she can’t stand him. The feeling is mutual. But as Vance and Rosie begrudgingly get to know each other, their careful masks come off—and they may just find that there’s more risk in shutting each other out than in opening their hearts.
Review
The Once Upon A Con series is such a cute one and as soon as I saw that there was going to be a third one and inspired by Beauty and The Beast I knew I had to read it.
Told in the perspectives of Rosie and Vance, this book ticked a lot of boxes for me in terms of what I love in YA contemporaries.
It had great main characters and character development. I really liked Rosie and Vance and I especially loved the enemies to lover’s trope. I see a lot of myself in Rosie and felt that I could easily connect with her character. Vance was a tough character at first to like but as we got to know more about him and about his life it made it impossible not to love him and his development throughout the book. Also let’s not forget the star of the show Sansa. That dog is the absolute cutest and I want her for myself.
This book also had a nice range of diversity with a nonbinary best friend and even a bisexual dad! I loved that these reveals weren’t over the top and were just simply introduced. There was no drama and that’s what we need more in YA books.
Bookish and the Beast contains a lot of pop culture references whilst I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea I honestly loved it. While a couple flew over my head I was totally in my zone with most of the references and it made the reading experiences so much more fun!
My only issue with this book was the whole reason she ended up working in the library. I felt it to be a little far-fetched but didn’t let it stop me from enjoying this book!
This was a great addition to the Once Upon A Con series and whilst this book could probably be read as a standalone I would recommend picking up Geekerella and The Princess and The Fangirl just to understand the world better.
Bookish and the Beast was such an enjoyable read that had me hooked from the very beginning. I didn’t realise how much I had missed this world that Ashley Poston has created and I cannot wait to see what she does next!
Rating: 4/5 stars