Title: Clover

Author: Nicole Kilpatrick

Pub. Date: December 1, 2021

Pages: 270

Pub: Fire & Ice Young Adult Books

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: ⭐️.5 (DNF @ 56%)

Clover is a Young Adult Fantasy novel that reimagines the leprechaun trope, depicting them as handsome, powerful fairies—and not the little mischievous sprites of lore. It’s an adventure and a love story which touches on the themes of luck, coming of age, and crossing worlds.

When a handsome leprechaun reveals himself to Clover O’Leary on her eighteenth birthday, she is faced with three hard facts. One: he is the reason for her remarkably charmed life; Two: her luck has now taken a turn for the worse. Three: her name is a curse; a malicious gift from the powerful leprechaun who named her while she was still in the womb.

In order to get her life back and undo the evil spell, she must travel to Ireland to seek the only creature who may be able to help: the Seelie Queen. With her intriguing leprechaun in tow, Clover crosses into the Faerie Realm, where fairies and mythical creatures abound and where finding her luck may ultimately lead to finding her love.

This will be a spoiler free review. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I thought I was going to really enjoy this. Based on the synopsis, I was almost guaranteed to love it. Unfortunately, I didn’t end up finishing it and had to DNF at 56%. I couldn’t force myself to finish a book where I cared about nothing that was happening.

I’m supposed to care about Clover and her bad luck, but I didn’t. As the reader, I’m left completely in the dark to the scheming going on, and why the antagonist needed to use Clover. And because of this, I didn’t care.

Then you have Finn, and if he’d been secretly pining over Clover for years, or whatever, I might believe his desire to save her, but he legit just switches sides, and then out of the “goodness of his heart” wants to save her.

I’m sorry, it’s been 18 years, and you never once thought to question anything? All other “assignments” were short lived, but this one 18 year one, you don’t even bother questioning? You just take orders like a good little soldier?

Nope.

Finn just didn’t work for me. He was charming and dashing and good-looking and apparently the best soldier ever, but like, so what? That’s not a personality and he had none. So, I didn’t care about his reasoning.

And every character interaction was too handsy and peppy, even after a first meeting. Like, everyone was just incredibly happy and go-lucky and had the energy of the Leprechaun on the box of Lucky Charms.

Due to the lack of emotional weights for anything in this book, I just didn’t care. I was reading chapters and scenes, moving on the next one and promptly forgetting what had just happened. Everything happened so easily. Besides Clover losing her luck, and a bought of the munchies, there are basically no hardships. And the few that there are, are magically solved.

Since I didn’t end up finishing the novel, I can’t speak for the ending, so maybe it gets better. But I kept re-reading the same lines, paragraphs and pages over and over, and in the end, I had to make the tough call.

I wish I’d enjoyed this, and I thought I was going to. But when I don’t care about the characters or what’s happening in the book…it’s hard to force myself to continue.

If you’ve read this book, and finished it, let me know!