Published: May 12 2015
Number of pages: 340
Format: paperback
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Genre: romance, contemporary, forbidden love
Audience: YA
Rating: 3/5 owl hoots
Find it on Goodreads | Chapters Indigo
Summary:
Fallon Dupree has always dreamed of meeting her high school sweetheart and as generations of Dupree’s have successfully followed the love fortunes from Zita’s Love Charms Shop in Grimbaud, Fallon has nothing to lose. Well, except that her love fortune states that she will never find love. But she’s not the only student receiving a doomed love fortune, a rebellion is brewing against Zita for people to take control of their own futures, and Fallon is determined to take control with her own fate even if it means working with the famous heartbreaker, Sebastian.
My Review:
This was a cute imaginative world where love charms and potions exist, and people line up to have their love fortunes told. I would love to live in a place like that if it weren’t for the tyrant bent on controlling people’s love lives.
Fallon Dupree has always dreamed of attending Grimbaud High School. Everyone in her family has met their high school sweetheart and turned out to be their first love. Since then, it’s been a family tradition for a Dupree to line up at Zita’s, the town’s most popular love charm shop and have their fortunes told. But unlike generations of Dupree’s before her, Fallon discovers that her hopes of finding high school romance are doomed. But she’s not the only one: meet Sebastian, Fallon’s classmate and notoriously known for breaking girls hearts one after the other. After learning about Sebastian’s reputation as heart breaker, my first impression of him was the typical high school playboy until he opens up to Fallon and admits indirectly that he doesn’t always enjoy breaking girls hearts. Right then I knew Sebastian was hiding a secret from Fallon and it had to do something about his love fortune. After discovering that they both had terrible love fortunes, the two decide to team up with the rebellion against Zita and her shop so they can take control of their own fate.
I was afraid this was going to be another fluffy cutsy wootsy love story, but I was glad that it didn’t turn out that way. Instead you have an adorable chemistry between two teenagers fighting against their pre-determined fate and not having a love charm maker control their fortunes. Love can be a fickle thing, when you’re lucky enough you may find the Mr. or Mrs. Right in your life, but there can also be heartbreaks. Nobody likes heartbreaks but that’s all part of love’s process as Fallon begins to learn after overcoming her fears of never finding requited love to actually finding someone to lend her heart to. Evie is taught that no one should know their love fortunes because love is always changing from how and where we find it.
I was happy how Sebastian and Evie’s relationship didn’t start out as instalove because I hate reading those, and instead it grows from a love-hate relationship between two opposites: Fallon is clean and perfect and Sebastian dates a series of girls. In the end after Sebastian finally let’s his barrier down, Fallon realizes that there’s more to him then on the surface leading to a classic relationship where opposite attract. And I love how the heroine saves the day in the end and not the typical knight in shining armor who saves the damsel in distress.
A really cute love story and a light read with one of the most beautiful book covers I’ve ever seen. Set in a charming and whimsy town where love is celebrated with cupid’s arrows and swan gondolas, this is one of the most charming love stories I’ve read.
Hoot Reads Books 