In 2019 my health started going down hill and I didn't take into consideration what that would mean for my book reviewing. Sadly, I've been trying to play catch up for years and it's been affecting my ability 5o keep up with present day tasks. So I greatly apologize for this but I am going to clear out all these older review books and focus on present day. I will come back and update this review if I end up reading the book, which is very possible as a lot of these books are still ones I would like to read, I just don't think the pressure looming over me is helpful. Thank you for giving me a chance to early read these books and I am so sorry I wasn't able to provide what was needed.

The thing I love about fairy-tale retellings or reimaginings is that there are so many perspectives and twists to take. This YA novel, told from the witch and the bewitched, explores the price of magic, abuse and curses. This isn't an easy read and is definitely dark but its one readers won't forget.

Well, this is a hard book to rate and review. Technically speaking, the pacing was all over the place and the tone of the story switches from whimsical slightly nonsensical fairy tale to high fantasy in a matter of few pages. The characters didn't have the depth I was hoping they would and there were plot holes that were a bit jarring to notice.

Now that that's out of the way, I still couldn't put down the book. I finished it in less than 24 hours and by the end of it, I felt a kind of vindicative satisfaction and sometimes that's reason enough for a 4 star.

The characters, while they don't have the depth I was expecting, were flawed all the same

It was the kind of book where I wasn't specifically attached to any character but still somehow the situations and the prose made me feel all the emotions.

There's just something about women coming together to fight against the society that tries to hold them down and it may be an overdone 'trope' in fantasy and an absolute cliche but I will still love it.

TW: sexual assault, mentions of rape, emotional abuse and neglect, sexism, victim blaming, trauma and dissociation, PTSD, gaslighting

This book took the fairy tale vibes a bit too far for me. While the premise intrigued me enough to pick it up, I found the worldbuilding to be mostly surface level and the characters sort of interesting but not really keeping my attention. I also really disliked that all of the struggles came back to a rape which felt entirely unnecessary and provided nothing (in my opinion) to the story overall. It was what ultimately pushed this one off my shelf. It’s marketed as a feminist fairy tale but frankly it felt like lip service by the time I was done reading. Can’t recommend.

I think younger me, when I was deeply into fairytales and would inhale anything involving them, would have maybe loved this, but adult me wasn’t very entertained. And I am still a young adult, 22, technically part of the target audience. It was just an odd magic system and a bit slow and didn’t stand out among the really well done retellings I’ve read.

I personally did not get into this one but. do think others might connect to this one more. Overall giving it three stars.

I really wanted to love this one but unfortunately it fell short of my expectations. I just didn't really care about the characters and I found the magic system to be somewhat confusing. The writing was done well and the pacing was good, but I value character development over even plot, and I just wasn't connecting.

I wasn't able to enjoy this the way I thought I would. The world building didn't give me enough as well as not very well fleshed out magic system or characters that made me care about the story.

I basically read the entirety of this novel in one sitting because I simply could not put it down. This is a well thought out book and an extremely well executed book.

Sign me up for all the feminist fairytale retellings (I'm absolutely loving this new trend in the publishing world)! Ever Cursed was such a unique fantasy novel -- I can't wait to read more from this author!

I have to admit that I was hoping for a different book with EVER CURSED. I just couldn't get into as I thought I would.

I almost didn't like it because it was too real? If that makes sense. It was a great book, so well written and clever but OOF it was heavy and I wasn't expecting that. Still fantastic. I'm definitely recommending it to my students because it has a strong message of reclaiming your power and fighting systems of oppression through collective action.

Unfortunately, this one just wasn't for me. The premise was good, the pacing of the book was good, but I just did not care about these characters or their world at all. The world-building left me unsatisfied, and the characters didn't go deeper than surface level which was disappointing. The magic system was also quite confusing and never quite fully explained. The synopsis proclaimed to be a feminist fantasy, but other than the fact that all the protagonists were female, I didn't really get a feminist vibe from it. Overall, I did not enjoy this one.

I loved it! The book cover was beautiful and once I got into it (it was initially hard for me to get into), I realized this book was actually pretty good. My opinion shifted of this book as the book progressed.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was okay, I felt the plot could have been better.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

I've got 14 pages left, but I'm calling it. I can't take it anymore. For the first time in many years, I don't want to leave a review for a book. I know what the author tried to do. I appreciate what the author tried to do. I hate the execution with a passion.

Trigger warnings: sexual harassment, rape, eating disorder, parent abuse

Because of the content matter, this review will have spoilers.

[I genuinely would like to forget this book exists because of how much I loathed the direction it took. What started out as somewhat whimsy and quirky fell into a dark and shocking territory that I do not want to read. It felt jarring, weird, and wholly uncomfortable. The synopsis is rather misleading and I promise now that I do not want, now or ever again, to read a book that tries to be dark and edgy while tackling patriarchy by centering the plot around rape.

The premise of the story is that a witch cursed five princesses with spells of without. One cannot eat, one cannot sleep, one cannot remember, etc. And now they have but a few days to break the spell. At first, I was enchanted with this. Witch magic works in such a way that every spell cast gives them a new skirt. Silk for light spells and heavy burlap for the big spells. And the curses themselves seemed intriguing and were written in a whimsical way. Not unhealthy, but just I don't need to eat. Turns out, no. This girl is emaciated to the point she is impossibly thin, and when she meets princes for the first time, they like it. She is a girl who can break, who can be bent to their whims. That was where it lost me. 90% of the characters in here are disgusting pigs who see these girls as something to manipulate for sexual and nefarious gain.

The plot never went anywhere. I was so bored because half of it was just people being too scared to act, too eager to strike a woman down, or too wrapped up in arguing about the same things. They're meant to collect items to break the curse, and yet it felt as though it was barely part of the story itself. It leaned too far into the effort to be shocking with the actions of the men that it forgot to give the story an actual purpose. The magic system, which felt overly complicated and difficult to follow, did not help matters.

Where I really should have DNF'd is the reveal that the whole spell came about because the king once raped the witch's mother. This terrible curse was cast as revenge, but shocker, the king is a filthy, privileged man who gets what he wants whenever he wants and oppresses everyone around him. He doesn't give a crap, and I hated having to read it. Even his own daughters. Jane will die if the curse can't be broken and he's totally cool with that. Heck, let me even lock you in a tower to keep you from trying to save yourself. As a villain, he felt so cookie-cutter and predictable. Meant to outrage, but not in the way it should have. Yes, rape is the center of this book and I LOATHED IT.

This was a preachy book that served only to piss me off. It tried to do a new twist on smashing the patriarchy and missed the mark entirely for me. It has a misleading cover and synopsis and honestly, good riddance. There are several books out there in similar tone and material that handled sexual harassment and smashing the patriarchy a hundred times better, like Damsel by Elana K. Arnold, and I'm going to stick with those.

A great read and thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to to read this book. I would highly recommend reading this book.

Though I tried to finish and enjoy this book, I believe that this particular story may not be for me. As I do not think it is fair to the author or publisher to post a review of a book I was unable to finish, I will refrain from reviewing this particular title.

Ever Cursed is a standalone young adult fantasy by Corey Ann Haydu. I wanted to love this book so much! I was initially drawn in by the absolutely stunning cover, and then I read the summary and I thought it sounded so good! I had an advanced ecopy of the book and I started reading it before release date, and I couldn't get into the story so I set it down. Then I borrowed the audiobook from my library and I was determined to give this one another shot. It has all the makings of a great story- a great fantasy land filled with princes and princesses, witches and curses, a creepy sounding curse, a quest to break it and a really richly diverse and inclusive cast. I was super, super pumped. But I am sad to say that this book just didn't work out for me. I seem to be in the minority with my opinion (at least according to goodreads reviews) so if this summary sounds like something you would really enjoy, definitely give it a go. I hope you like it much more than I did!

In Ever Cursed we have a ton of main characters, which was one of my issues with the book. We have our four cursed Princesses of Ever- Jane, Alice, Nora, Grace, and Eden and the young aitch that cursed them- Reagan all as our main characters. It was a lot of people to keep track of and to try and get to know. Jane and Reagan are the oldest of the 5 main girls so they took a little more of a center stage than the others, but most of the book has them all present on their quest to break the curse. I liked Jane and the sisters well enough, but I couldn't really get to know them very well because there were so many of them. I also found it really confusing for about the first 35% of the book. I couldn't tell who was talking and then once I could identify their voice, it was hard for me to place who they were in the big picture. Because we have the four Princesses of Ever on the cursed side and then we have Reagan and her whole extended family on the cursing side. I was initially overwhelmed, but once the book got into the actual quest part of the story at about the 40% mark, I had everyone and their curses well enough sorted out. I just felt like it took too long for the story to get going and for me to gain my bearings in the world.

The curse itself was very interesting and completely terrifying. Reagan was mad at the king and in order to try and get back at him she cast a spell on all his daughters that would take hold when they turned 13 and would become permanent when Reagan turned 18. It was called the spell of without, and it took something from each of the cursed princesses. Jane was unable to eat or drink anything (for years!) Alice was unable to sleep, Nora was unable to love and Grace was unable to remember. Eden was the last to be cursed because she turned 13 just days before Reagan turned 18, and she was cursed to be unable to have hope (I think?) At Eden's birthday Reagan shows up and tells the sisters how they can break the curse, and off they go on kind of a quest.

Here's the thing- I really liked the idea of the plot, and I loved the cast of diverse and inclusive characters, as well as all of the social themes and serious issues that the author decided to tackle in this story, but I strongly disliked the mean characters who seemed mean just for the sake of being mean. The princes and princesses from other kingdoms that laughed at the cursed princesses and who wanted a cursed princess of their own, to the people of Ever itself who seemed to delight in watching the cursed young ladies suffer. It just felt mean spirited for the sake of being mean spirited and I didn't like it as a plot point to show out the meanness in the world. I think there are many other ways to accomplish that. My other issue with the book was Regan. I found her to be incredibly rash and immature. She cast that huge spell at such a young age and didn't really even stop to think about the consequences. And even after being essentially banished for 5 years, only to return before her 18th birthday to give the Princesses the opportunity to break the spell, seemed to do nothing for her. I could not connect with her in any way shape or form. She was too impulsive and selfish for my liking and I just couldn't see her as anything but the villain, which I know is not what the point of the story was. I am a very character driven reader, and so my inability to connect with the characters led to too many frustrations for me to be able to enjoy this story. That is not to say that I can't see the appeal. I think this book will appeal to many readers who are looking for a feminist fantasy story that features a diverse cast. If that sounds like your cup of tea, give Ever Cursed a read. Tons of readers seem to really enjoy the storytelling in this one. It just wasn't for me.

I LOVED this book! It’s one that stays with you and it is so unique!!! I can’t wait to rush to buy it!!! 5/5 stars!!!