Un sort si noir et éternel

Things I liked in this book:

Spoiler
- The opening scene: Harper attacking Grey with a tire iron. Gooood!

- The amount of times they tried to make Harper a damsel in distress, but she kept running away from the trope.

- She ran away thrice!

- Harper slapping Rhen and the POV changing to Rhen :D

- Grey. Everything about Grey.

- The character interactions between Grey, Rhen and Harper were nicely written. Especially liked the card game conversations.

- The POV change for the monster.

- The healer's concubine :)

- The curse wasn't actually broken by the cliched trope (Well, it was unclear but I'd like to think it wasn't a 100% broken because of sacrificing yourself for your love thingy).

- The ending was a nice change of pace from all the retellings.

2.5/5 stars

Did I read a different book then everyone else? I am seeing a lot of 4 and 5 star reviews and I'm so confused.

The same thing happened with [b:Defy the Night|50022883|Defy the Night (Defy the Night, #1)|Brigid Kemmerer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1620924420l/50022883.SY75.jpg|71638471] so maybe Brigid Kemmerer just isn't for me.

Honestly, I know this book is YA, but it felt so juvenile for me. Like it would have been better as a middle grade series, the characters aged down a few years. the entire thing where Harper convinced an entire coutry she was a princess from a different country they never heard of??? What even??? How stupid are the citizens of Emberfall to believe that??? I can't. My eyes hurt from rolling so much.

Everything that happened in the book was just sooo convinent tbh. Her brother dating a doctor? Meeting into a man that used to be in the army and having him join the guard? The entire county of Emberfall not doubting their obviously ridiculous lies? Lol. There was no problem solving skills found anywhere in this book.

Anyways, I'm still gonna binge the rest of this series bc I'm trash for buying books and already own books #2 and #3.

I read this in one night and I feel like that says a lot about whether I enjoyed this book or not because it's not exactly short. I love a good Beauty and the Beast retelling and this is my favorite one I've read so far.

This could have become a love triangle book, but it didn't, so I was happy about that. In fact, despite the aim of the main characters being falling in love to break the curse, there was very little romance for most of the book, which was fine.

The main issue I had with it was that I didn't really feel very connected to any of the characters except for Grey, and the main joy I find that I get from most books comes from me connecting to characters emotionally. I definitely liked Grey, I found him complex and I know there was more going on underneath the surface. I can't wait for the next book because I want to find out more and I want him to be happy. 💔

Also of note: the main character has cerebral palsy and it was really cool reading a story from her perspective.

i thought i would enjoy this book, but i was mostly just bored and disappointed. i think i would have liked it more if i didn't read tons of fantasy books, this book just doesn't compare to others i've read

the only thing i liked about it was that the main character (and author) have cerebral palsy, and i liked how that was included in the story. definitely read the authors note if you ever pick this up

rather than that everything else felt very ok, i actually enjoyed the 100 pages tho those were exiting