Robin Talley

The brilliant new romcom from 2020 CILIP Carnegie medal nominee and New York Times bestseller, Robin Talley. *************************************************************

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre

Perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Nina LaCour, this #ownvoices romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Robin Talley has something for everyone: backstage rendezvous, deadly props, and a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to True Love. Melody McIntyre, stage manager extraordinaire, has a plan for everything. What she doesn't have? Success with love. Every time she falls for someone during a school performance, both the romance and the show end in catastrophe. So, Mel swears off any entanglements until their upcoming production of Les Mis is over. Of course, Mel didn't count on Odile Rose, rising star in the acting world, auditioning for the spring performance. And she definitely didn't expect Odile to be sweet and funny, and care as much about the play's success as Mel. Which means that Melody McIntyre's only plan now is trying desperately not to fall in love.

The Love Curse of Melody Mcintyre

Rebecca Hurd

Such a cute lighthearted read!! Great queer representation and all things a theater geek loves!!

Hannah

PRECIOUS! Another sweet sapphic love story very sweet! The beginning gave me crippling second hand embarrassment but in the end I love the two of them together!

Dilayra Verbrugh

How to sum this up? Queer theatre kids! The main couple is sapphic and the bisexual rep was great! 
I loved Odile, she was such a sweetheart 😍

Reyna Wren

Very sweet, there were a couple really cute scenes. However, it really could have used some more editing, there easily could have been one to two hundred pages less. It got a bit repetitive. I wasn’t a fan of the middle section without any descriptions between dialogue, or the documents included at the beginning of each chapter. I think my high school self would have loved it, but as an adult it’s harder to take high school drama seriously.

KADY BURNS

I am a sucker for differently formatted books. I really enjoyed how this one read like a script and had random notes, spreadsheets, etc. The story itself was pretty engaging, even as a non-theater kid. I felt like this was a bit of a flashback to high school. I may re-read this when it comes out.

Caitlyn DeRouin

Read the full review here: https://teatimelit.com/2021/01/06/rev...

This book truthfully just brought me so much joy. Since the lockdown started I’ve had this little (alright huge) theatre shaped hole in my heart and as I mentioned earlier, I just really miss that part of my job. I miss the rush of stepping into the theatre for the first time as tech week starts, I miss wearing my theatre blacks, I miss running around the theatre spiking set pieces, numbering the stage, and solving problems as they arise, and I miss putting on a headset and calling a show. This book brought some of those feelings back. It brought me a little bit of that joy that I have been missing.

I really loved the entire idea for this book. Theatre is filled with superstitions and we theatre kids take our superstitions very seriously, so I thought that it was a great idea to center a book around the idea of a theatre curse. While some of it could be a bit over dramatic overdramatic and unrealistic (can we really ban someone from starting a relationship during a show?), I was thoroughly entertained the entire time I was reading. The crazy drama worked though because what else do you expect from a book about theatre?

While I see how Melody could be a character that would get on some people’s nerves, I have a soft spot in my heart for her. We both love a good spreadsheet, like to have the answer to everything, take pride in our organization skills, and ultimately really really love what we do. Though at times she could be judgemental, a bit self-centered, and bad at communicating with her friends, I think that those things made her a real and well-rounded character. I also thought that her friendship turned relationship with Odile was quite sweet and that they really brought out good things in each other.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre kind of just felt like a big hug for all the theatre nerds out there, and I felt very at home while reading it.

Candyce Kirk

Paige Green

Disclaimer: I received this book in a box from Once Upon A Book Club box. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre

Author: Robin Talley

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 5/5

Diversity: Bisexual main character and love interest, gay fathers, non-binary character

Recommended For...: LGBT+ readers, contemporary, ya readers, romance

Publication Date: December 1, 2020

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Recommended Age: 16+ (language, sexual content)

Publisher: HarperTeen

Pages: 464

Synopsis: Melody McIntyre, stage manager extraordinaire, has a plan for everything.

What she doesn’t have? Success with love. Every time she falls for someone during a school performance, both the romance and the show end in catastrophe. So, Mel swears off any entanglements until their upcoming production of Les Mis is over.

Of course, Mel didn’t count on Odile Rose, rising star in the acting world, auditioning for the spring performance. And she definitely didn’t expect Odile to be sweet and funny, and care as much about the play’s success as Mel.

Which means that Melody McIntyre’s only plan now is trying desperately not to fall in love.

Review: I really enjoyed this book so much. It felt like a love story to theater and theater kids. I loved the character development and the world building. I felt like the story was fairly solid and I also loved how mature most of the characters felt.

My only concern is that I felt like the pacing was a bit slow in the middle and I felt like the resolution was too neatly resolved.

Verdict: It was great!

Michelle Boyea

This book was very well-written and captures your attention from the very beginning. It’s a quick and light-hearted read that is perfect to decompress with.

Mel is a normal high schooler, she falls in love and not all of the relationships work out. However, she also loves the theater and being a stage manager. She gets caught up in the superstitions of the theater and her team, and this causes her to try to make the ultimate sacrifice for herself and deny herself the love that she is feeling.

I love the way this book ties in love with loyalty and commitments. Mel tries so hard to make everyone happy that it backfires on her. And I love that she eventually realizes she needs to do what is best for her.

This is a great rom-com with humor thrown in!

Perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Nina LaCour, this #ownvoices romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Robin Talley has something for everyone: backstage rendezvous, deadly props, and a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to True Love. Melody McIntyre, stage manager extraordinaire, has a plan for everything. What she doesn’t have? Success with love. Every time she falls for someone during a school performance, both the romance and the show end in catastrophe. So, Mel swears off any entanglements until their upcoming production of Les Mis is over. Of course, Mel didn’t count on Odile Rose, rising star in the acting world, auditioning for the spring performance. And she definitely didn’t expect Odile to be sweet and funny, and care as much about the play’s success as Mel. Which means that Melody McIntyre’s only plan now is trying desperately not to fall in love.

[The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.]

CN: slutshaming (it isn’t very explicit, but still…)

What I liked:
•	The cover is so cute!
•	As a former theatre kid, this book made me so happy! I loved the atmosphere and all the musical references. And I definitely need to rewatch Les Mis soon!
•	Mel is openly bisexual and has two dads! (And Odile identifies as queer and later says she isn’t sure of the details yet, but bi is closest to what she is.)
•	I really like the writing style.
•	The format of the book is so interesting! It's set up like a real play/musical (with scenes, acts and an intermission) and there are lots of notes, cast lists etc. I felt like I was a part of the crew!
•	Mel and Odile are so adorable!
•	The ending was wonderful! Maybe a bit cheesy, but I loved it!

What I didn’t like:
•	In my opinion the love story developed a little to fast.
•	Unfortunately, I didn’t like any of the friendships in this book. Mel says Dom is her best friend, but she often ignores him and doesn’t talk to him very much, even when she notices that something is wrong with him. And her other friends forbid her to fall in love?! How shitty is that? And they never really admit that they did something wrong too? I wish they had more conversations about that.

4 out of 5 stars

vely

This book was actually very entertaining. I'll break it down.

The Characters
I actually did like the main characters, but not the side characters, which is... different, to say the least.

Melody: Well. I found her to be kind of annoying, what with all the lying to the actors about the superstition, and whatnot, because they clearly took it very seriously. Other than that, she was great.

Odile: She was the best character in this book, and I'm gay for her. Simple as that.
But actually, I felt her pain and felt like she had valid concerns.

aLL OF THE FUCKING SIDE CHARACTERS, BECAUSE THERE WERE SO. MANY:
They. Were. Awful.
If I'm being honest, I feel like the crew members were discriminative towards the actors throughout almost the whole book, and the actors awful to them. It gets sort of resolved towards the end though, I was happy about that.

The Plot
I actually quite liked the plot. It was interesting, and not overdone. Props on that.

Tania Joana da Silva Monteiro

I'm okay with suspending my disbelief for a story and people having superstitions happens all the time. But the way the main character's friends treated her because of the superstitions made me uncomfortable to the point that suspending my disbelief for a whole group to believe in a nonsensical thing wasn't possible, just because how they acted towards their friend. I do think that the atmosphere of a musical and of high-school was done very well tho.

Ocean

This book is cute and cheesy and I enjoyed it! I'm not even that into theatre but it was fun to read. The sapphic romance was adorable, and was probably my favourite part of the book. I did performing arts in high school and enjoyed acting, not that I've done any acting since, but reading this showed me that the crew who do all the sound, lighting, props, costumes, etc. are awesome and I'd love to be part of that. Though I doubt I'll ever be in a theatre other than to watch shows, but I digress. The crew and cast were pretty cool (but mostly the crew), the superstitions were intriguing, and the ending was heartwarming. Very enjoyable.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre

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