Synopsis: Fall in love, break the curse.
Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year, Prince Rhen, the heir of Emberfall, thought he could be saved easily if a girl fell for him. But that was before he turned into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. Before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.
Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, Harper learned to be tough enough to survive. When she tries to save a stranger on the streets of Washington, DC, she's pulled into a magical world.
Break the curse, save the kingdom.
Harper doesn't know where she is or what to believe. A prince? A curse? A monster? As she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what's at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.
Review: I’m a sucker for fairy tale retellings, and A Curse So Dark and Lonely has been highly praised by just about everyone. Naturally, I was interested in what this book was and, I gotta say, I didn’t love it as much as everyone else. I liked Harper well enough, and I thought a main character with cerebral palsy was interesting, but the way some characters talked to her was frustrating. I can’t remember if it was Rhen or Grey, but one of them tried to talk Harper into pushing herself despite her CP. This is going to be a situation that hits readers differently. I suffer from chronic pain, and I hate when people try to convince me to do things even though I have a migraine and I want to die. Scenes like that in books tend to frustrate me, especially in a fantasy story where Rhen and Grey don’t know what CP is or how it alters the body.
The overall story was fine, but nothing special. I liked how it started in the modern world, and Harper is transported to this fantasy setting. There’s a moment when Harper is asking about the curse, and Grey says that everyone is cursed. I really liked this line, and I hoped it meant the story would follow a different path and Rhen wasn’t the cursed creature. Sadly, this isn’t the case. It followed the same trajectory as every other retelling and that bummed me out. I also hoped that, instead of Harper being the “love” who breaks the curse, that it was Grey. Maybe Grey and Rhen would fall in love and that would end the curse? Again, this didn’t happen. Instead of being a dynamic story, it just followed the same formula as the others.
Entertaining, but overall disappointing. Not at all living up to the hype.
3 howls
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