Review: My Enchanted Life

Title: My Enchanted Life
Author: Laura Eno
Pages: 256
Published: 2011

Summary: An American teen finds herself thrust into a world she never knew existed in England's magical community of Wode Gate. While dealing with gnomes, a cranky dragon, murder and mayhem, Emma tries to cope with her unwanted duties as Sentinel and fights to get back home again.

She finds that things aren't always what they seem, people aren't who they pretend to be, and someone wants her dead. The king of the underworld wants her too, but he may be the least of her problems as Emma struggles to control her powers—while losing her heart to a demon.

Review: I know that the schedule said that I was going to review Divergent tonight, but due to some ridiculously annoying circumstances, Divergent has been pushed back to tomorrow.

I didn’t have many expectations for this book since I knew little to nothing about it, excluding the fact that I had requested it. When I realised that I had to read it for an upcoming review date, I just dug in without even rereading the synopsis. Sometimes it’s better to jump into a book blindly, without knowing what goes on in the book at all and just experiencing it firsthand. My Enchanted Life was definitely one of those books.

In My Enchanted Life, Emma finds herself relocated to Britain when her uncle dies and leaves her his home. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to be eighteen, just out of high school and finding yourself the owner of a home in a country that you haven’t been to since you were born. Emma bravely accepted the duty to go and see what the property was like and landed herself in a world that she never expected.

I knew from starting the book that it was going to be some sort of paranormal YA novel, but I hadn’t expected it to end up being such an intriguing novel. There were so many different types of novels in the YA universe these days that stick to one or two different kinds of concepts; dystopian, vampires vs. werewolves, mermaids, et cetera. It was nice to see that this one had a sort of different concept to it. There were the typical concepts inside of the novel and Emma had some Mary Sue qualities, but there was some uniqueness to it.

I enjoyed that there was a variety of paranormal and that they all lived together. My favourite had to be Cussard, a wonderful dragon that was the colours of the rainbow. He just had such a wonderful personality to him, and while he was supposed to be one of those ‘grumpy’ characters, I enjoyed him. I also have to say that I really liked Randolph despite the fact that he ended up being a jerk in the end. I wanted to see more about him and I really wanted him and Emma to get together.

Out of all the characters, the one I liked the least was Matthew. I was not a fan and I kind of wanted to punch him in the face within moments after first meeting him. Of course the Greek God-esque person with the hard past and the troubled heritage was the one and only fit for Emma. It bothered me, to be quite honest, that he was the one that she ended up with, and despite the fact that I really liked the story, I think it would have been better without his character, even though he was vital for about half of the novel to commence.

My Enchanted Life was an intriguing read, and if there is a sequel I plan on reading it, if only to hope that Emma and Randolph will end up together in the end and to see more of Cussard, Lizzy and the rest of the gang. I wasn’t a huge fan of the main characters, but then again, I usually am not when it comes to a novel. Even the best of them don’t seem to have MCs that I want to fall in love with. It’s the side characters that are my favourite, and Laura Eno managed to give me side characters that I fell in love with, side characters that make the novel one worth reading.


Rating: ★★★★ 4/5 Stars