Curses

Imagine beauty and the beast but the beast is a girl and the beauty is a handsome boi who is born to a family that cons. It was lighthearted with funny banters but wasn't enticing enough to captivate.

This novel is my favorite kind of fairytale, with a colorful cast and CURSES that change form and loom with real consequences.

A fun, unlikely cast of characters made this book such a pleasure to read. Surprisingly entertaining as a “heist” story, too.

It took a little while to get into the story, but once I got to Merit’s cursed support group scene, and she actually met Tevin, it was a fun and easy read from there.

The audiobook was a delight, I loved Val’s voice in particular. After my loan returned early, I finished on ebook and still read everyone’s lines in their voices. I think Cedric became my accidental favorite character.

I loved the slightly “modern” twist on a fairytale world, and Lish McBride described it all in such vivid detail, the world felt truly lived-in. I expected the bloom flower to play a more prominent role (I may have had some Tangled mental bias), but I like that this story is intimate and focused specifically to its characters.

The idea of enchanted mirror rooms was brilliant.

So much great ostrich imagery, too. 😂

There’s nothing more reliable than a good old retelling.

It’s even better when it’s a gender flipped retelling.

The girl is the beast ? Well, now I want to read that beauty and the beast retelling.

And it did deliver. I loved our main girl Merit. Her personality, her pride (yes I loved it), her intelligence. She was also very relatable as a character.

She meets Tevin and she has to rely on this handsome man to find her the perfect match to get married and lift the curse. But handsome men are not to be trusted.

Here you go, you have your enemies to lovers trope with delicious banter and omg I’ve enjoyed their interactions so much. It was chef’skiss

The way the story has been told was very original and refreshing imo. And the author knew how to play with the clichés of fairytales and all.

The setting was on point and the cast 🤌🏼 I can’t believe I have to say goodbye to the crew , all the characters were endearing in their own ways. Even the suitors haha

Overall, it was really enjoyable to  read and if you’re looking for a real new take on the beauty and the beast then wait no more and pick this one up.

Despite, the tight schedules recently, a reading slump pointing its nose along the way. It was a great pleasure to read it when I had the book in my hands and I won’t forget those characters anytime soon.

This is a super cute gender bent Beauty and the Beast retelling. We follow Merit who has been cursed by a godling because she refused to marry the person her mother chose. Therefore, she must either marry someone who loves her or marry someone of her mother's choosing before her 18th birthday to change out of her beast form. We also follow Tevin, who is from a family of criminals and con artists. After his mother gets caught stealing flowers from Merit's garden, she decides to trade herself for her son. Merit decides that Tevin will have use helping her decide who out of the men her mother chose from, will be the least bad. Be aware that a majority of the story focuses on Tevin helping Merit decide who she should marry and the process of her trying to court these men. Curses is funny and over the top and ridiculous. It is a light hearted and fun retelling. The characters in this are all so fun and there are so many different and amazing personalities. This book also expands on the lives of the side characters in a way I really appreciated, instead of just making them there to further to main characters' stories. There is also so much casual queerness it's amazing. Merit's healer Ellery is non-binary and there is a romance between Tevin's cousin Val and Merit's guard Kirya. I saw another review in which someone said that this is a romance between two Hufflepuff's and that is a very accurate description. Both Merit and Tevin are very sweet and cute people who have fallen victim to their circumstances. I thought their romance was cute. I loved the fact that Tevin came from a criminal family that literally spends all their time conning people. It made him to be a very interesting character and a fun conflict between him and Merit (aka ANGST) This is because the con that Tevin does a lot of is the exact one that Merit fell prone to earlier in her life. Once again, A N G S T. The biggest complaint I had about this book, that really isn't that big of a complaint, was the timing of everything. There were some parts of the book that felt a little drawn out and like they weren't quite necessary. It takes a while for the book to even get the part where Tevin will be living with Merit and helping her. I just wish we could've jumped into the story a little sooner.

Check out my full review on We Write at Dawn! This book was good, but it wasn't everything I wanted. I found myself enjoying the store, interested in what was going to happen next, but also fine with putting down the story and not feeling the urge to finish it. This isn't a long book, it's under 300 pages, and yet it took me a while to read because I didn't feel pressed to know what was going to happen next.  This book was resoundingly good. The plot? Good. The characters? Good. The story, the dialogue, the magic? All good. Nothing really stood out to me and I enjoyed it. It was just good.  It's sad that I don't have much more to say, but this book was good. It had its faults, it had some things I liked, and it was a good story. If you want a new take on Beauty and the Beast, I would definitely check it out!

** spoiler alert ** I just... wanted more from this book. I didn't want her to end up with the beauty, and I didn't want anything from the bad guys perspective until later on in the book.