A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer
“I am always surprised to discover that when the world seems darkest, there exists the greatest opportunity for light.”
– Brigid Kemmerer
Specifics:
Book: A Curse so dark and lonely
Author: Brigid Kemmerer
Published: 29th Jan’2019
Genre: YA Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Fairy Tale
Series: The Cruse-Breaker #1
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 512
My rating: 3.5/5
Blurb:
Fall in love, break the curse.
It once seemed so easy to Prince Rhen, the heir to Emberfall. Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year over and over, he knew he could be saved if a girl fell for him. But that was before he learned that at the end of each autumn, he would turn into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. That was before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.
Nothing has ever been easy for Harper Lacy. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother barely holding their family together while constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, she learned to be tough enough to survive. But when she tries to save someone else on the streets of Washington, DC, she’s instead somehow sucked into Rhen’s cursed world.
Break the curse, save the kingdom.
A prince? A monster? A curse? Harper doesn’t know where she is or what to believe. But 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.
” It is not the moment of passing that is most important. It is all the moments that come before.”
– Brigid Kemmerer
Review:
A highly recommended and rated retelling of beauty and the beast, ACSDAL was on my reading list from the time the holo book spine caught my eye. I have mixed feelings about the book. Was it over-hyped? Probably not! But it hasn’t met my expectations even to a 50%.
First of all, I felt like it initially had a lot of clichés and was predictable. The story telling was average at best and the choices of the characters were annoying. What redeemed the book for me was the last few chapters. I liked that it was much more than just a love story. It had loyalty, love, friendship, trust and the importance of family embedded in the story. It ended with a nice and alluring plot-twist.
The story is narrated from two point of views. One is Harper and the other is Prince Rhen. It does not get confusing or monotonous. It feels good to have different perspectives of the same situations at times.
The story reveals that a curse has Prince Rhen stuck in a loop of one season which has him turn into a monster and destroy everything around him and that can only be broken by true love. He has been trying to break it since forever with the help of the woman that his royal guard, Grey procures from the real world but to no avail. And during his most desperate times which happen to be the last season of the curse, they accidentally conjure Harper who is the most unlikely option to break the curse.
I am gonna assume that you have guessed the rest of the story and you are mostly right. Except for the fact that there is war involved and Prince Rhen finally decided to give up on the curse and fight for his people. That is the best part of the story.
Apart from the annoying character choice in the middle of the book, everything else made up to a good read.
I rate the book 3.5/5.
Spoiler alert:
Since I have already covered major parts of the story, I want to jump right into the characters:
Harper: She is strong, fierce and bold but she was somehow the most annoying part of the story. She does redeem herself with her choices in the end. She loves her family even though she knows that it is broken. She is given a choice to save her family or to save a kingdom and like a boss, she does both. In the end, I happened to like her a little.
Prince Rhen: Ugh! I can’t be the only one who feels like he’s selfish and that I hate him so much. I just can’t get over the fact that he is so annoying. I don’t know why I feel so. I know a lot of people have crazy opposite thoughts. But let’s see what book 2 has in store.
Grey: My favourite character from the series and I say series because I have hope that he will definitely be more important in part II. I would even like Rhen if he accepts Grey’s legacy and gives up the throne to him. I really want Grey and Harper to end up together though.
Lilith: This was probably the worst rendition of Lilith that I have come across. From what I have seen before (In chilling adventures of Sabrina and Lucifer specially) Lilith is painted to be evil but strong. In the book, there was no proper reason for the curse and Lilith only inflicted pain for a reason that was not very clear. I would have liked the book better if there was a stronger back story.
The other character worth mentioning are Flora and Zo who both become good friends and confidants of Harper and are strong women, Jake and Noah who are the epitome of love and Noah is a portrayed really well as the physician (given the situation in India, the respect that he gets as the healer is worth projecting) and Jamison who is a powerful and faithful soldier despite the fact that he only has one arm.
I think that I will try and pickup the next part given that the potential chance of Grey being the legal heir to Emberfall has been revealed. We also get a glimpse that he might not really be interested in over-shadowing Prince Rhen and I would like to see how it goes. The good part is that the author tied up the entire story by making the monster help Harper win the war against Karis Luran before the curse is actually broken.
“Failure isn’t absolute, just because you couldn’t save everyone doesn’t mean you didn’t save anyone!”
– Brigid Kemmerer
Reasons to pick up the book:
- Good retelling of beauty and the beast
- Shows strong family relations
- Powerful values like trust, loyalty and sacrifice are covered
- Strong female characters
- LGBTQ literature
- Has the map of Emberfall
Cons:
- Gets annoying mid-way
- Predictable to some extent
- The cliff-hanger is not much promising
“I am always surprised to discover that when the world seems darkest, there exists the greatest opportunity for light.”
– Brigid Kemmerer
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