REVIEW: “The Reluctant Godfather” by Alison Tebo

 

About the Book...

*Title: The Reluctant Godfather

*Author: Alison Tebo

*Genre: Clean fairytale retelling (Cinderella)

*Series: Book # 1 in the Tales of Ambia

*Recommend for: Ages 12 & up

My Personal Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐

📖Synopsis

Burndee is a young and cantankerous fairy godfather, who would rather bake cakes than help humans. A disgrace to the fairy order, Burndee has only two wards entrusted to his care…a cinder girl and a charming prince.

A royal ball presents Burndee with the brilliant solution of how to make his wards happy with the least amount of effort. He’ll arrange a meeting and hope the two fall in love.

A humorous and magical re-telling of Cinderella from a unique perspective.

💭My Thoughts 

This was actually really...neat 😉 (Burndee's highest compliment).

It should be noted that I am not a fairytale retelling reader, this being only the second I've read. Furthermore, I have never even watched Cinderella and have no interest in doing so. (Or any Disney movie for that matter). But that didn't stop me from truly enjoying this fun little book and relating way more than I should with Burndee. His sarcastic thoughts and comments were hilarious, and I can't wait to see him again in the next books.

Personally, I thought it was possibly a tiny bit rushed, but that's probably just because the book is very short. For the same reason, the writing occasionally felt as if it was not fully fleshed out and didn't quite immerse me in the story like some other books, but I can easily look past those minor things because it's just a short, cute, fun fairytale book. One final thing was that I have seen in reviews that there's a "twist" at the end and, well, I don't quite get how people would be surprised by that ending...I guessed it would happen from like page 5 😂

But overall, this was a fun, sweet, humorous, unique story, and I am very excited to continue the series!

⚠️ Content notes

Old school Disney-like magic & spells; no language stronger than phrases like "blasted", "give a hang", and "why the blazes" throughout, as well as a bit of name calling from a certain reluctant godfather (idiot, fool, dunderhead, etc.); very light romance with minimal not-detailed kisses.

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Bookishly yours, 

Lottie M.