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Sunday, June 25, 2023

Book Review: Happily Ever After by James Riley (Once Upon Another Time #3)

Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: Action, suspense, humor
Cons: Rushed ending doesn’t satisfy
The Bottom Line:
Fairy tale ending
Doesn’t satisfy: too rushed
Expected better



Rushed Ending Keeps Me from Being Perfectly Happy with This Book

I was anxiously waiting for Happily Ever After, the third book in James Riley’s Once Upon Another Time trilogy.  After all, the last book left us with some interesting twists and a great cliffhanger.  However, ultimately, I found this ending disappointing.

Since this is the third and final book in a trilogy, I’m not going to recommend you start here.  Technically, there’s even another trilogy before this one (Half Upon a Time) that is also set in this world.  While some of those characters have supporting roles here and tease what happened in those earlier books, you don’t need to have read (or remember) what happened to enjoy this trilogy.  But I do recommend you read the first two books before you think about reading this one.

A little context if you are new – as the titles teased, these are fairy tale adjacent stories.  You won’t see as many characters you already know in the Once Upon Another Time books, but a few of them will occasionally make cameos.  We’ve been focusing on Lena, a giant who is normal human size; Jin, a genie in training; and Shefin, a Lilliputian that the pair met along the way.

As this book picks up, Lena and Shefin are living in the Blessed City.  Everyone is happy and eagerly waiting for the fairy queen ball to take place that day.  Something in the back on Lena’s mind is saying that things aren’t right, but she does her best to ignore them since to go against the fairy queens means punishment.

But on her way to school that morning, she discovers a book lying on the road that seems to be for her.  What could it possibly mean?  And where in Jin?  Could he be the key to uncovering what is really going on?

The book started out great, like normal.  While I wish I’d had time to reread the ending of the last book before I jumped in, I was soon remembering where the characters were and caught up in the journey to fix what has gone wrong.

This series has also always had a fun sense of humor, partially because of it’s meta references to writing.  Those were present again as well, and I got a kick out of them, although they were a little toned down from previous books.

Plus, I do like the characters, and I was enjoying seeing them fighting against some of the worst odds they’ve had yet.  Trust me, it was hard to put the book down.

Part of Lena’s journey in this book involved her coming to terms with her size difference from regular giants, including her parents.  I struggled a bit with this section of the story.  While I agree with what was written on the surface about learning to accept who you are, reading it with the lens of today’s world, I felt like it was an allegory that treads on some dangerous territory that can do more harm than good.  It’s a shame because I can agree with part of the sentiment behind it.

Then there’s the ending.  It was like author James Riley ran out of room in the book and had to rush things.  The result was pretty unsatisfying, especially with what he did to a main character from the series.  In many ways, it felt like a gut punch.

Then comes the coda, which is supposed to make us okay with how things ended.  Again, it was too little and too rushed, and I felt like I was getting whiplash.  I also felt like one character’s ending didn’t fit what had come before for that character.  Maybe I would feel different if I had time to go back and reread the earlier books, but it didn’t sit right with me as it was written here.

As always, this book is told from a couple of different points of view.  The changes happen at chapter breaks, and they are used well to ramp up the suspense.

I really wish I had enjoyed Happily Ever After more.  Having read the author’s other books, I expected more.  While the characters are happy with the ending, I was left dissatisfied.

Here are the rest of the Half Upon a Time and Once Upon Another Time books.

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