Book Review: Enchanted, Inc.

I mentioned yesterday that I was charmed by the book Enchanted, Inc. I picked it up on Sunday on a whim (well, honestly, I read Kristen Nelson's blog - she's a literary agent and this is a book from one of her authors. She posted on the story at one point, long ago, and I was curious. So when I stumbled upon it while browsing, I figured it was worth a shot.)

This is a cute story - imagine Men in Black meets Harry Potter and you're on the right track. The story is of Katie, a Texas transplant to New York, who is incredibly ordinary. Turns out that this actually makes her valuable to the magical community in New York because she can see through illusions that they can't. So she can help them see magically masked clauses in contracts, etc.

The magical world is in a bit of a pickle because there's a wizard in town trying to sell spells that do harm on the open market. So Katie has to help the good magical folks put a stop to this. In the midst of all of that (and it's not heavy mystery or intrigue - it's light and fluffy), Katie is trying to land herself a boyfriend. Her roommates keep setting her up on miserable blind dates and she has a huge crush on one of the wizards at work. And it's here where it started to lose me - because honestly, it's fairly clear that Owen (the wizard) is who she needs to end up with, even though they bring in a cute but low in the personality department non-magical substitute at the end. And the back of the book says that "happily ever after" is one of the end goals - and yet there's no conclusion or closure at the end (there are two more in the series), so you're left with the sinking feeling that she's going settle for the ok non-magical guy instead of the guy she really wants (Owen) because her parents will understand "lawyer" as a profession. If ever there was a ridiculous reason to give up on someone and settle for another, that would be it.

So, while I loved the beginning, the end was a huge let down. And incredibly anti-climatic on several scores (Two examples: big wizard duel...that really was kind of "eh" when it got down to the writing of it; she had this incredibly ambitious rival at work who had seniority that just *poof* disappears - I was all set for her to be an inside girl for the competition with evil plot twists, and that may be the case, but it's like the author totally forgot that she'd created that character and developed tension between her and Katie leaving the reader scratching their head and wondering where that sub-plot went. In fact, there were several other sub-plots that just kinda dangled off into nothing, though none of the others were as potentially fabulous as the work rival one.) Add to that the fact that the publisher decided that this was going to be "literary fiction" and therefore packaged it in the linen soft cover and the larger "trade" size - which means that you get to pay $10 - 12 for it instead of the $6.50 or so it would cost in a regular size paperback and I'm a little annoyed and wondering if it's even worth getting the next one to see if any of these loose ends get resolved and if Katie comes to her sense and embraces the fact that she's a fictional character and therefore should just go after the guy she wants and who she's perfect for rather than settling because it'll make dinner conversation easier!

Sigh. Yesterday (before I finished) I was all set to give this 5 stars. Today with the whole book read, I have to downgrade it to 3. Cause yeah, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince, but in the bookstore, there are a lot of frogs that leave you less disappointed than this one.