Curses Review

Rating: 3/5

Merit Cravan refused to fulfill her obligation to marry a prince, leading to a fairy godling's curse. She will be forced to live as a beast forever, unless she agrees to marry a man of her mother's choosing before her eighteenth birthday.

Tevin Dumont has always been a pawn in his family's cons. The prettiest boy in a big family, his job is to tempt naïve rich girls to abandon their engagements, unless their parents agree to pay him off. But after his mother runs afoul of the beast, she decides to trade Tevin for her own freedom.

Now, Tevin and Merit have agreed that he can pay off his mother's debt by using his con-artist skills to help Merit find the best match . . . but what if the best match is Tevin himself?

---

I’m a sucker for Beauty and the Beast retellings. It’s always so interesting to see all the different ways this story can be told while also keeping the core of the original tale there. I was especially excited for this as it’s a genderbent retelling of this tale.

The premise I found to be a unique one, set mostly around the idea that our female lead, who is the beast in our tale, still a beauty in her human form, but finds herself to be angered easily. And her anger is what leads to her curse, refusing to be married. She still must eventually marry in order to break the curse, but now it’s for a marriage of love, not an arranged marriage. Then, we have our male lead, who is our “beauty,” is more of a “pretty boy” with a fae ability to sweet-talk his way through life on top of his known attractiveness. 

Despite this unique setup, I struggled to connect with either of our MCs. I found myself empathetic towards Merit, wanting to see her fall in love, but still be her own person. But when she would have an outburst, I found her to be so incredibly annoying. It was basically watching her throwing a temper tantrum at times. She just came across as very childish despite her age. And Tevin, I just didn’t care for at all. His attitude and demeanor made him seem more like a Gaston than a Belle, especially since he knew he was handsome.

Throughout most of the book, it was an easy read. This is definitely more towards the younger side of Young Adult. But as I mentioned, especially not being able to connect with either of the MCs, I did find myself bored or annoyed at times. Plus, since it’s a retelling, it was also predictable to me, it was easy to figure out how things were going to play out. Nothing that happened really shocked me all that much. 

While not my favorite retelling of this old tale, I still found it enjoyable to read. If you enjoy morally grey characters and Beauty and the Beast retellings in young adult books, you might enjoy this one!