Author: Colleen Hoover
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary Romance
Source: Simon & Schuster Australia. Thank you!
Goodreads | The Reading Room
This novella is a companion novel to the Hopeless series, but can be read as a standalone.Review by Nara
A chance encounter in the dark leads eighteen-year-old Daniel and the girl who stumbles across him to profess their love for each other. But this love comes with conditions: they agree it will only last one hour and it will only be make-believe.
When their hour is up and the girl rushes off like Cinderella, Daniel tries to convince himself that what happened between them only seemed perfect because they were pretending it was perfect. Moments like that with girls like her don’t happen outside of fairytales.
One year and one bad relationship later, his disbelief in insta-love is stripped away the day he meets Six: a girl with a strange name and an even stranger personality. Daniel soon realizes the way he pretended to feel about Cinderella and the way he really feels about Six may not be so different after all. Especially when the two loves of his life end up being one in the same.
Unfortunately for Daniel, finding Cinderella doesn’t guarantee their happily ever after…it only further threatens it.
*Since this novella is free online, I'm going to be doing a discussion on this one i.e. a review with spoilers. It's probably not even really going to be a review. More like a reaction post. As always, spoilers are hidden under the spoiler tags, so it's safe to read the bits not hidden if you haven't read the book.*
Warning: Minor spoiler in this first paragraph. It's kind of obvious from the beginning, but if you're absolutely terrible at predicting things, then it could be a spoiler.
I have to admit, the prologue of this novella was extremely cringe-worthy for me. It just seemed so cliched and had such a feeling of being out of a fairytale rather than a contemporary (which maybe was the point? Who knows...) Well, in any case, sure, the initial meeting between Daniel and Six is pretty random and fast, but their relationship a year later is supremely shippable. The banter! Colleen Hoover is so good at the banter!
How hilarious are Daniel's parents?! Oh my god, when they were talking about the showers, I was just sitting there going THIS IS THE BEST. Despite this story being a hundred page novella, I laughed out loud so many times, it was ridiculous.
“You talk to him about the fact that we haven't had sex?" Six says, completely embarrassed.I also really love the interactions between Daniel and Holder. It's quite obvious that behind the teasing and the "hostile" insults, there really is a solid friendship. I suppose we saw that in Losing Hope, and it's even more apparent in Finding Cinderella, especially when Daniel has his breakdown (are you curious what this breakdown was about? You have no excuse for not having read this novella, tis free online :P)
My father shakes his head. "No, he doesn't have to. I know because every night he comes home he goes straight to his bedroom and takes a thirty-minute shower. I was eighteen once."
Six covers her face with her hands. "Oh, my God." She peeks through her hands at my dad. "I guess I know who Daniel gets his personality from."
My father nods. "Tell me about it. His mother is terribly inappropriate.”
Spoiler time!
Click me to read spoilers
My God. The complete and utter shock of finding out that Six was pregnant. WHAT DA HECK. It seriously just came out of nowhere! Although I couldn't help but find it funny when I thought of what Daniel's family must think when Daniel first finds out that Six is Cinderella. They watch Daniel "passionately" kiss Six and then she runs away in tears. It would have been like what da heck?! from a bystander's point of view lol.
Well, all I can say here is that if you've read Hopeless and Losing Hope, and enjoyed them, then you really have no excuse for not reading this novella. And if you haven't read those two books and like contemporary romances, I would definitely recommend that you get your hands on some copies asap. And enjoy!
Incredible
RatingsOverall: 9/10
Plot: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Romance: /5
Characters: 5/5
Cover: 2/5
