I have always been a Beauty and the Beast kid (though I grew up with Grimm's version and not the disney one haha) which is why I think I related so deeply to Rosie - and her bookish obsession (especially the scenes were she was sorting the library???? I mean, I love sorting books(helves) it's so therapeutic) This was more of the typical "good girl - bad boy" NA story which I am just absolutely fed up with (thanks to a lot of other NA books) but it is according to the fairytale, so I guess it is fine. The only thing I'd wished for would have been more Con context - the first two books are so heavily centered around the Starfield ExcelsiCon. that it's absence here almost left a black hole. Nevertheless a good read.

The Once Upon a Con Series does not disappoint. I'm mostly sad that it's over and that I might have to read other books by Ashley Poston now? But first: I was a bit hesitant at first about Vance being one of the protags because he was not introduced very favorably in [book:The Princess and the Fangirl|39725622], but then I remember that I felt the same way about Jess in the beginning of that book, and yet I still came to love it. With this one, it was similar. Rosie was an immediate hit, and I enjoy that Poston continued the theme of this series' protagonists having been introduced to Starfield by their parents, even if each of them in different ways. Rosie's mother had a big collection of Starfield companion novels, which she and her dad had to sell when she died. Vance is a rich kid with rich parents and rich friends and a proportionally skewed look on friendships and relationships, and I enjoyed him finding out how to make actual human connection and also wanting to. Also: Him and Mo being friends? Totally unexpected, but I loved it. I'm struggling to pin-point what exactly I liked about this story, I just did, but Ashley Poston's writing style always hits, the way she writes about the act of being a fan in the different facets this exists, and the process of becoming a fan, it's just written with so much love for fandom as a whole that it makes these books feel so cozy, and then the characters are so real and experience normal teendom, even those that are involved as movie stars. This series is just one great teen romance book set in a fandom environment slightly based off a fairytale after another. Will always recommend all three of them!

-Hörbuch- Hat mir gut gefallen, das Ende war mir allerdings zu schnell. Der Anfang zeichnet eine schöne, langsame Entwicklung der Geschichte und der Charaktere. Ab dem Bruch geht es mir dann aber plötzlich sehr schnell und wenig nachvollziehbar. Plötzlich ist alles wieder gut. Trotzdem süß geschrieben und das Knistern hat mir gefallen.