Curses

How many reviews do I see where the reviewer begins “I wanted to like this one”? But, my, I wanted to like this one. It's true. A gender-swapped beauty and the beast? Not only a retelling, but a reverse retelling? Even though there were some sweet, swooning parts, and the idea is fresh for a retelling, it was littered with so many tropes and cliches that the book just ended up feeling a little more juvenile than I wanted. Maybe I went into it thinking the book would be darker since most retellings are, and it was my assumption that caught me off guard. Still 2 stars instead of 1, though, because hey, there were nice parts and I think for some readers, they may not have the same gripes I had.

Many thanks to PRH International for giving me a copy of this book to read and review. All thoughts are my own. A Beauty and the Beast retelling where the Beast is the girl? Give it to me! Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourite fairytales and when I heard that [b:Curses 43207851 Curses Lish McBride https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1605801796l/43207851.SY75.jpg 67047308] is a retelling of it WITH A TWIST, I had to read it. The cover also caught my eye, so it's a big plus from me.I really enjoyed the book and I found it very easy to read, I laughed along with the characters and I cried when emotional things happened, even though I knew (or at least I suspected) how this was going to end, it still warmed my heart so much. The story of Merit and Tevin, the Beast of Cravan and the Beauty, a handsome boy, is perfect for fans of heartwarming stories, fairytale retellings with a twist and great side characters. There's also a non-binary character in this book, which I really appreciated. We rarely get to see non-binary characters in fantasy books.

After about 24 hours to ruminate, I've come up with my final rating and some thoughts.

4.5 stars—half of the last one deducted because I felt like the ending didn't quite wrap everything up as well as I thought would be fitting for this kind of book. For me, this is basically a comfort read, and ideally, for me, a comfort read shouldn't leave so many questions. For example:

-What happens with Val and Kaiya? I very much appreciate not coupling all the characters off, but this particular potentiality was practically a subplot, so it feels weird to not have some kind of resolution at all. (Personally I've decided, apropos of absolutely nothing, that Kaiya is ace—though not necessarily aro, soooo...!)

-Hob??? Hob Hob! Hob?! HOB

-Basically most of the side characters' arcs felt sort of unfinished. Hob has this whole unexplored backstory (and future) I would kill to read, and Latimer's last appearance seemed to hint at a future tale of his own, and Kate was way too hyped to be left unwritten.

All that said, though, I really do think a good epilogue would have been enough to put to rest most of these loose ends for me. It felt like one was coming, and I even went back and reread the ending to check whether I missed something the first time. (And then checked the author's page for related short stories and novellas.) Maybe the ending was just a little too quick overall for me; it definitely felt like it was leading up to something more, like possibly a sequel/series based on side characters' own adventures or at least an epilogue to round things out, until right at the last page.