A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

Challenge #24 ~ “Pick a genre and read nominated books from three different years of the Goodreads Choice Awards – Book 3: YA Fantasy (2019).”

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★ ★ ★ ★ ★

My opinion in three sentences:

I’m not sure I can coherently translate my thoughts into three sentences for this book – would a ‘woah!’ just do? Essentially, I was blown away with every aspect, enthralled by the audio (I would 100% recommend listening to the audiobook) and, despite not being a huge fan of Beauty and the Beast, absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on the audio for the sequel. Why, past me, did we wait so long to start reading this?

(Without spoiling anything) the best bit:

The greatest aspect for me was the characterisation. Quite often in a book, they’ll be a character or two I’m indifferent about, or just don’t like (and not because I’m not supposed to like them). In A Curse So Dark and Lonely, this wasn’t a problem in the slightest. In fact, at times I was definitely more keen on seeing Grey and Harper’s relationship develop than Grey and Rhen’s, which given my fussiness about romantic (side)plotlines is a testament to how well Kemmerer writes them. The only characters I was left unsure on were Jacob and Noah, and at the moment I’d put that down to just not knowing them well enough – I guess book two will tell…

A warning for the book:

There is one thing that wasn’t quite right – it felt long. That’s not to say it’s a chunky book, because compared to some of its contemporaries, it’s nothing, but at times you really feel it dragging on. I recognise there is a need for the gradual build up of the main relationship (because rushing it would have ruined the whole book), and I can’t put a finger on specific moments that were unnecessary or difficult to get through, but equally a good book (in my humble experience) doesn’t leave you feeling that at times it was too long. And, quite honestly, I don’t know what to make of that.

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