THOUGHTS

This book is as soft and sweet as I thought it would be. Perfect for fans of Julie Abe's The Charmed List, this book pulls on familiar characters but is also perfectly standalone. It's a gentle romance, set in a magical city with dazzling enchantments, bubbling elixirs, and delicious food to try around every corner.


PROS
Light and Fun: There's something so magically delightful about this book. It's soft and cozy, perfect to curl up with on cold winter nights. The city lights are dazzling, and the sightseeing is as romantic as anyone could hope. This book perfectly encapsulates a soft and fluffy romance.

Magical Tokyo: Tokyo is already a city of lights and technology, so adding magic to the mix only enhances it all the more. Tea shops where you can seek your fortune, department stores that dip into the future of (magical) technology, and hidden nooks and crannies that only reveal themselves to those who know what to look for: what's not to love about that?

Magical University: On top of the city itself being imbued with magic, the university where Remy has to go for her college interview is even more magical. So steeped in magic that the ancient tomes of the campus have come alive to act as guides around the campus, there's all the charm of the magic outside of the university walls plus a touch of academic flair that's just nice.


CONS
Love Triangle Strikes: You know what I really didn't like in this book? The unexpected love triangle. Love triangles generally aren't my thing, but I don't know that I've ever read a book where the love triangle was more unnecessary. Thankfully, it doesn't play a major role, but the existence of it at all is irksome. There was really no need here.

Keeping Secrets: These kids obviously like each other, so why have they held the truth in all this time? I can get nerves. You don't want to change the dynamic with your best friend, not when there's a chance the feelings aren't mutual. But nerves really only seemed to be the case for one party here. The other party has other motives. I don't want to spoil anything here, but the motive in question is really quite dull. I didn't buy it, not for two people who know each other and respect each other as much as these two.

High School Sweethearts: Sure, it's cute and soft and sweet, but the depth of their affection at times felt a bit too intense for their actual situation. I know high school sweethearts can go on to have happy, successful adult relationships. But Cam and Remy's feelings for each other nonetheless felt a bit more mature than I would have expected from two seventeen-year-olds, no matter how close they are.


Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
7/10
Fans of Melissa Landers's Lumara will love this new contemporary world touched by unexpected splashes of potent magic. Those who loved the magical chemistry of Julie Abe's The Charmed List will adore this new, ill-fated couple.

loved this romance and how the journey stated and ended. loved the friends and all of the trials that they went through on the journey. loved the cast and i can't wait t read more.

Thank you to the publisher for my arc!

This was so heartbreaking in the best way possible. I loved the story and the romance and couldn’t put it down.

It's cute. The prose is pretty good, there's no real issues with the book. It's a sweet story. I think it will do well with the core audience, which I am not, so maybe i am biased.

Remy has been best friends with Cam since the moment they were born, practically. She’s been in love with him for a while, too. Now, as they are about to graduate high school, she wants to tell him how she feels. After all, they may be separated by thousands of miles: Cam plans to attend MIT and Remy hopes to go to Tokyo Magical University.

Both have saved up the money they needed to make a trip together to Tokyo, and this delightful time of year — Christmas and New Year’s — would be a special backdrop to opening up to true feelings.

Just as she is working up the nerve to share her heart, Remy, Cam and his brother and her sister (who live in Tokyo) find a magical tea shop that appears in different places on different days. She gets her fortune told from the legendary owner, and while she hoped to hear that Cam is her soulmate, she is crushed by the answer.

When they find another magical spot that appears in different places, this time an apothecary, Remy and Cam take a chance on an ancient elixir. Remy hopes it can fix the disastrous situation of her fortune. But then after they drink the potion, Cam forgets who Remy is and how she fits into his life.

Now it’s fully a disaster. With some help from talented magical friends, they try some ways to reverse the results of the potion. That means collecting important memories and mixing them with another potion. But if it fails, both of them will forget each other. And they only have six days to make it happen.

I received an e-ARC from NetGalley, and the author. The thoughts and opinions are strictly my own.

Our Cursed Love was the first book I read by Julie Abe. It was a fun read with all the magical elements like stores popping up, and the mall adventure was neat at well. When Remy and Cam decide to take an adventure to Japan in order for Remy to interview at her dream college, she was going to tell Cam how she felt. Through a series of misadventures, things did not turn out as planned. This book is the telling of how they try to navigate memories before Cam loses his memory due to a potion. There are some students in my classes that will probably like this one and will be picking it up for our class library.

I read The Charmed List last year and found it enchanting, nostalgic, and heartwarming. It was easily one of my favorite books of last year. It introduced a gorgeous, low scale magic system that was both cozy and charming.

When I first heard about Our Cursed Love, I was elated to be getting a companion novel to The Charmed List. I expected the same charm that Abe's magic brought in the first one to be carried on into its companion. And I was not disappointed.

Our Cursed Love is set in gorgeous Tokyo as Cam and Remy take one last vacation together before parting ways for college. The setting feels as alive as the characters do, immersing the readers into the magical story.

I adore the friends to lovers trope. It makes a story become familiar and heartwarming. Cam and Remy have been friends forever. And what makes this tale so special is that readers get both of their perspectives. Thus, the slow burn of their friendship to something more is realized throughout each chapter.

The only thing I didn't love was the memory loss element. If I had read the synopsis of the book before reading, I would have realized that after Cam and Remy take a restricted love potion, it backfires and Cam forgets his best friend. The second half of the book is a whirlwind of Cam’s memories of Remy. It changes the initial tone of the book that was once a friends to lovers now turned almost-strangers to lovers, I suppose. The use of memory loss in any story is not my favorite, but I do think Abe uses it well to show the depth of Cam and Remy’s relationship.

While it is certainly not necessary to read The Charmed List before diving into this one, the main characters from the book do make an appearance in Our Cursed Love. Ellie and Jack's sweet cameos put a smile on my face. Our Cursed Love follows Ellie's younger sister, Remy, and Jack's younger brother, Cam. Chronologically, the events of The Charmed list happen first. However, it would be fine to read the two in any order.

Our Cursed Love is as enchanting as The Charmed List. With a cozy romance at its core and the most charming magic ever, this book envelopes readers into a warm hug. You definitely don't want to miss it!

I received an electronic ARC from St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Our Cursed Love, features the same characters from The Charmed List. However, this novel can be read by itself in my opinion. This novel is not a sequel, it is another story featuring the same characters.

I appreciate the author’s writing style. However, the explanation of the magic seemed too technical, and actually took away from the magic for me, if that makes sense. Scenes where things just happened were better than the ones where the reasons behind and for the magic were explained.

I appreciated learning about the Japanese traditions around Christmas and the New Year holiday.

This was a bit of a disappointment for me.

While I did read it all the way to the end, I found myself skimming the last 15% because I just wanted to get it over with.

This story dragged and was incredibly repetitive. It was like reading an essay that a high schooler wrote where they say the same thing in each paragraph but in a different way, just to meet the word or page goal.

I felt like most of the plot lines the author had going were disjointed and made the story feel choppy. For example, the whole Taka being her soulmate felt half assed and added in when we barely even got to know him during the book. That whole storyline would have hit harder if he actually spent quality time and had deep conversations with Remy, but he was only ever there in passing.

The old family new family thing was very confusing and not well developed.

The magical school thing just felt…underdeveloped and made the story more confusing.

Essentially there was just TOO many elements and too many plot lines that didn’t get to be fleshed out. If the author stuck to the main plot of Cam and Remy’s romance and the failed love potion, I think it would have been a way better story.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

This was a cute, best friends who secretly love each other with magical elements to the story. While it had an interesting premise, the execution just felt like it was missing something. I just didn't feel a true connection between our main couple, and everything seemed pretty one dimensional. Even though there was a ticking clock that could have detrimental consequences, I just wasn't overly invested in the outcome. Not a bad book or writing, but I wanted to feel more and not just be told...

3 stars

OUR CURSED LOVE - Julie Abe

PERSISTENCE - 3 stars

Plot - 4 stars - Remy is trying to get enough courage to confess her feelings for Cam during their trip to Japan. But then she is selected for a magical tea leaf reading, and it reveals that they’re not meant to be together. Remy and Cam are offered an ancient soulmate elixir, created before all love potions were banned by the magical government. They each have their reasons for wanting to take it, but after drinking it, their trip takes a turn for the worse. Cam has forgotten who Remy is. If she can't help Cam remember her by midnight New Year’s Eve, they’ll be cursed to forget each other. Can they travel through Tokyo to rediscover Cam’s memories and make new ones before the deadline?

Writing - 3 stars - The writing was fine, although I got confused from time to time. I had a hard time keeping track of the magical world Abe created and would have to review in order to get my bearings. However, I very much appreciated the creativity of the "magic-aware" world and enjoyed the imagination involved.

Characters - 3 stars - The characters are appealing, but not compelling. Remy is a determined girl, but she spent a lot of time worrying about her feelings for Cam and regretting her decisions. It got old. Cam, similarly, spent the whole book thinking about his relationship with Remy and wondering if it was true love or not. I get that both are teenagers in high school, but they were just one-note for much of the book and didn't capture my attention.

Title - 2.5 stars - This seemed harsh, especially considering the hopeful feeling of the book. It didn't send me in the right direction.

Cover - 3 stars - The cover displays beautiful colors. But you'd think the cover would better match the title.

Overall - 3 stars - Although I enjoyed the characters, and it was fun to visit Tokyo and learn a little about that interesting location, the story was confusing. That could be my fault since there was a strong magical element, and that's not my usual genre, but I felt there were a lot of technical philosophies that needed further explanation. I did enjoy the misdirections that added some lightness--such as a car in a box, the store in the middle of the escalator, the vanishing coffee shop, etc. The characters were my favorite part of the book, but their teenaged angst lasted a bit too long and lost some spark and interest for me.

I believe I wanted more than what this book gave me. The cover is beautiful and the synopsis is on point but the book fell flat for me.

I was really hoping that I could push myself with this story but I had a difficult time connecting to it. Although I enjoyed these characters in the previous book they didn’t seem to have the same spark as last time. The pace of the story made it hard for me to remain engaged. It wasn’t a bad book, it’s just not the kind that has you eagerly devouring each page.

Unable to get into this book. Wrong book at the wrong time. Will not leave bad review online. Thank you for providing ARC

'Our Cursed Love' or as I like to call it, 'Two Idiots Madly in Love but Too Scared to Say Anything.'

This book was beyond adorable! I had all the feels, from the warm and fuzzies to the heart clenching pain. As my first Julie Abe book, I can confidently say that it won't be my last. And despite knowing that Cam and Remi were endgame from the start, it didn't detract from the enjoyment. I would gladly recommend this book to anyone who loves a pure, young but angst filled, friends-to-lovers romance.

If I had to point to this story's strength, though, it was absolutely in the journey. It was so much fun following them as they remembered their best moments while also making new ones. It was those core memories, the ones that signified a change in themselves and/or feelings towards each other, that had me falling in love with both of them. The character growth was perfect, too. Forcing both of them to confront what made "Cam and Remi" so perfect together also required them to self analyze why they made the choices that they did, why they've been avoiding taking that next step in their relationship, and what it really means to accept a person even with all the pain that might come with it. Sometimes hindsight really is better.

So I loved the story and the characters so much, then why the 4 stars instead of 5? It was the supposed second love interests. They were mere shadows compared to Cam and Remi. Even the impetus of trying to thwart a tea leaf prediction as motivation for the "you don't have a soulmate" verdict fell pretty flat for me. I truly think the book would have been just as spectacular without that additional trope shoe-horned in.

*** Originally reviewed on my IG @Katie_the_Wandering_Reader on 12 December 2023.

Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. These opinions are my own.

Our Cursed Love tells the story of Remy and Cam, the younger siblings featured in The Charmed List. While this book stands alone, I do recommend reading them in order. Doing so provides lots of backgrounds on their families and how magic works.

Our Cursed Love features a countdown to New Year's and is a great read right now! Remy and Cam travel to Japan. She is working to figure out how to tell him she loves him before they part ways for college. But she doesn't want to risk their friendship. Then a mix of magic, fortune, and potions starts a clock on whether Cam will forget her forever.

There are so many interesting questions about love, fate. and what control we have over our own futures. The story really delves into what makes us who we are and what are the components that make our relationships. I continue to adore how magic works in this world. And I was so impressed by all of the characters.

I would have liked slightly faster pacing at the start and a bit more time for the conclusion. But overall, I found this a great and enjoyable read.

Set in a world where magic is very much real, two best friends, Remy and Cam, travel to Japan to check out a prestigious school. While there they drink some magical tea that has Cam forgetting who Remy is and Remy working hard to remind him through a series of adventures. Unique and great on audio, I really loved this one! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!!

3.5 stars, rounded up. I think?

After adoring, The Charmed List, I was so excited to get to read Ellie's younger sister's story. Remy has been in love with her best friend Cam forever but has never found the right time to tell him.

I loved the whimsy of magical Japan, the cast of characters, and the whole concept of whether we all have soulmates or not. I felt like parts of this story were slow, repetitive, and bogged down with "I love him but can't tell him yet" (which is one reason I really struggle with friends to more in general). This book was even more logical than the charmed list, which was so fun. I did find myself rooting for the wrong guy for a chunk of this book and I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending!

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday books for my complimentary copy of this book. All opinions here are my own.

Remy and cam were friends. But will they be more? Abe does a fairly solid job of convincing you they belong together. It's a cute love story with a fantasy twist. The fantasy twist I could have done without but i liked the story enough.

I did enjoy this book. I like a friends to lovers story and this book was cute enough. It was surface level for me but enjoyable all the same.

Thank you to NetGalley and st martins press for this arc

I love the premise and magic world of this story. I definitely enjoyed the first book better though. I wanted to go back to that story. I love that this creative world gets more time to be explored though.