By the Book

Izzy and Beau are the cutest!! I loved seeing all the nods to Beauty and the Beast in this book. I think the character of Beau is really well done. The Beast being an awful kidnapper type is a popular interpretation of the fairy tale that I never liked. I really appreciate that Guillory made Beau to be very different from that. I also love the romance in this one. It subverted some of my expectations and I loved that! This series is just the best.

As a book club organizer, the BEST thing that you can find is a set of resources provided by the author for the book you are discussing. This book club kit for By the Book is a wonderful example of the best kind of book club kit. It includes an author interview, with insight into the inspiration for the book and the author in general. The discussion questions provided are specific to the book and generate a great discussion about the story and how each of us in book club reacted to it. There is also a guide and interview about the cover design of the book, which is something my book club doesn't always talk about, so that was a new idea for us to discuss. There were fun items in the kit like quizes, bookmarks, and writing prompts. For the host for the evening, there are suggestions about snacks and drinks, which is always so fun to tie to the book you are discussing. Overall, this book club kit made our book club discussion richer and more fun than we would have had otherwise.

A cute enough story but not my favorite

I'd give a 3.5/ 5 stars but I think this will be my last Jasmine Guillory book. I really didn't like Royal Holiday after the 50% mark and with By The Book I remained interested until the 75% mark only because Izzy and Beau took so long to finally get together. And why is it that the two JG books I've read have long distance relationship as one of the major conflicts in the story? Jasmine is very good at writing the pining stage of the romance but once her characters get together I find my interest in them waining due to the constant overthinking, silly misunderstandings, and sometimes cringe flirting. Overall, I liked this book enough to finish it but I was skimming the writing towards the end. It became obvious early on who was antagonizing Izzy at work. Beau blowing up at Izzy anytime she brought up the hard parts of his life started to get old (sir you're writing a memoir. People want to know about the difficult parts of your life!). And Izzy constantly thinking the absolute worst about the situation when she and Beau had a fight or didn't talk to each other for a few hours got annoying.

This is my very first Jasmine Guillory book and it certainly will not be my last! This is a Beauty & the Beast retelling, spotlighting Izzy who works at Tale as Old as Time Publishing, and Beau, the brawny stubborn celebrity whose memoir has Izzy scratching her head and facing new frustrations daily. To please her boss, Marta, Izzy steps up to personally hunt down Beau to “encourage” him to hand in his memoir. Romance ensues and the rest is history.

Now, the nods to Beauty & the Beast were pretty obvious and more prominent throughout the first couple of chapters or so. Those sort of died down a bit as we progressed through the book. I have nothing to compare it to in terms of comparing Guillory's other romances to this one and how quick/spicy the romance is but, the romance wasn't too spicy, and it was a very slow burn - I was about 65% in when a move was finally made.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I do wish there was more plot development - it was kind of one note - but I loved the characters and the character development. I also enjoyed the Beauty & the Beast take on the story.
I would rate this 4/5 stars, and would recommend to anyone who wants a fun, quick romance read.

This was a quick and charming read! I had enjoyed [b:If the Shoe Fits 55660420 If the Shoe Fits (Meant to Be, #1) Julie Murphy https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603309604l/55660420.SY75.jpg 86678230], the first book in the Meant to Be Disney-inspired series, but because that one is based on Cinderella which a) wasn't a huge fav Disney movie of mine and also b) honestly I'll say it, I don't think the Disney Cinderella has as many defining characteristics to distinguish it from the generic European Cinderella story as the Disney Beauty and the Beast does. So it was really fun to see all the specific lil Easter eggs in this. I would say I didn't think the characters/relationships are as fleshed out here as they are in the non-Disney-adjacent books of Jasmine's that I've read, but, whatever, a nice little treat with pleasing sprinkles of fat positivity and Black women succeeding in the face of the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry.