There’s something about Shea Ernshaw’s writing that completely pulls me in, her characters, her atmosphere, her storytelling style feel so unique to me that I went into this book with expectations. The author mentioned that this one is different from her others, much softer, and that’s exactly what The Beautiful Maddening delivers.

This is a story where family legacy is a curse, one that makes people fall madly in love with the members of the Goode family.

To be honest, I expected more from this book, even though I tried to go in with moderate expectations. Shea Ernshaw usually crafts all consuming stories that keep you up at night and leave a lasting mark. This one… isn’t quite like that.

Even though the book is short, it still felt too long—repetitive in certain parts. I think it would have benefited from a novella format; I have no doubt that a shorter version, telling the same story, would have had the same impact. That said, I still enjoyed it. My favorite part was the ending, it was so Shea Ernshaw that I just couldn’t be mad about it. It was the perfect way to “end” this story.

A YA Gothic romantasy novel with Belladonna vibes!! Lark is a great FMC and the entire story is one that is easy to fall into and want more of!!

I’ll never be able to see a tulip again without thinking of this book! Shea Ernshaw’s hypnotic writing made this magical realism tale a must read. It drew me in from the first page and kept me reading with an ending I never saw coming.

*I received an arc of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

ES!!! I've been approved by Netgalley! Thank you!
Wow interesting and somewhat original story with an ending that leaves a lot of open questions where you as the reader can make up your mind about, but great story telling. Ernshaw can definitiely write!
Anyway, interesting tale about a family curse in what seems to be a rural town where people fall in love with members of the Goode family. Things go awry when people steal the tulips, which are where the magic of the curse comes from.
Lark Goode, our protagonist, tries to stay away from love for that reason. Love is not real. Love is dangerous. One day, she meets a mysterious boy who is not affected by flowers the way the others are, but little does she know, he has secrets of his own.
A thinker's story indeed that is more character driven and really delves deep in the psych of love, loss, abandonment, and trust, including fate and how we make decisions to lead us there. Lark wants to defy her stars, the curse, but fate seems to lead her to a different route.
The prose of the book was just as intense as the story itself, melodic, atmospheric, and dreamy, pulling the reader into her tormented mind.
Glad this was a quick, interesting read. Loved the relationship dynamic between her and Archer (who apparently also had secrets of his own) as I am also a twin here.
Thank you Shea Ernshaw and Netgalley for the chance to review this ARC!

"The Beautiful Maddening" is yet another beautifully written story by Shea Ernshaw, whose lyrical prose never fails to captivate me. Lark Goode's journey is both tragic and poignant, making for a compelling YA coming-of-age tale.

From the start, Ernshaw drew me into the haunting mystery of the Goode family curse, keeping me eager to unravel its secrets. While I enjoyed the story, the miscommunication trope between the FMC and MMC became a bit frustrating at times. That said, Ernshaw did a great job tying everything together in the end. I only wish we had delved deeper into the origins of the family curse. Overall, it's an engaging read that's both quick and immersive.

Thank you to NetGalley, Shea Ernshaw, and Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I truly enjoyed this read!

A very interesting and unusual read.

I liked the concept of the tulips causing people to fall in love head over heels, in a mad sort of way. The romance between the female lead and her love interest was very well done, and had a sufficient amount of ups and downs and everything in-between. The characters were described in a way that made them seem to come to life, and the pacing was good.

I did not really like the brother - he gave me a very 'ick' feeling, and I felt really sorry for our female lead (although she could have definitely stopped moping around so much). The ending of this story was definitely unexpected.

All in all, I give this book a solid 4/5.

The Beautiful Maddening has a fitting title for such a poetic story. It is a coming of age story for an outcast girl grappling with a curse and protecting her heart. It has a very gothic feel in a contemporary setting. I loved that it takes place in the PNW. Cutwater feels just like home to me and I empathized with Lark’s experiences. There were times that the story felt slow but once it hit its climax, the plot sped up. This is a great choice for teen readers.

Thank you to NetGalley, Shea Ernshaw, and Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing for supplying me with this advanced reader copy of The Beautiful Maddening.

gorgeous, tense, and ominous story filled with tulips and love turned to obsession. 4 stars, just because the main char felt a hair flat at moments. tysm for the arc.

Every year, the Goode family's cursed tulips bloom, and everyone is drawn to them. Obsessed with the idea, they are in love until the flowers wilt and they go back to their regular life. Except this year, it's a beautiful maddening when the flowers are stolen and the town is sent in an uproar with all the coupling and uncoupling and flower obsession. Lark is just trying to slescape the flowers curse but gets tricked into love only to question everything as twists and turns keep coming up. Even the end doesn't tie the story up nicely because it's everything she never wanted.

True Rating: 2 3/4 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this arc.

First and foremost, Ernshaw's writing is stunning. Every line is pure poetry. I found myself rereading lines often, trying to sear them into my brain so that I would never forget them. There is an issue with repetitveness in the early chapters, though. It is as if the author thought of a hundred different ways to describe the tulips' impact on the townsfolk and couldn't choose one, and so they were all implemented at the beginning of successive chapters. The writing is gorgeous every time, but it's too much.

It is up to every reader to deciper the meaning of a book for themselves, but this is what I took away from it.

I think that this book is about overcoming the fear of pain. Of heartbreak. It's about... learning to live. I think it tackles the fear that many of us hold inside us: the fear that we're not lovable and that we'll never be known or genuinely loved beyond empty infatuation or lust. It's about learning that you have to risk everything to feel anything, to experience anything. It's worth the pain. Life is beautiful, and there is even beauty in pain because experiencing pain means that you are experiencing life.

It is a beautiful book. Undeniably. The writing and the takeaway are beautiful. The romance is top tier. The YEARNING, guys. The YEARNING.

I urge everyone who takes the time to read this review to read this book and decide for themselves. But now it's time to dive into the reason why I book that I enjoyed so much at the beginning received such a low rating.

I loved this book up until the end. The first page, the first line, grips you tight and doesn't let you go. However... for me, one page, just one, destroyed the book, unraveled the plot, contradicted the book's meanings, and even the characterization of the main character. Consistency in characterization is very important to me and the character's final act goes against who Lark Goode is at her core. It was a very... human moment, but not one that ultimately made sense.

Spoilers to follow this.

Lark Goode lives by a strong moral code. She is very concerned with free will. It would be simple for her to take advantage of the family curse for her own gain. But she never does. She craves, needs, genuine love. A large portion of her character arc deals with the deep-rooted fear that she will never know it; that she doesn't deserve it. For the first time, she allows a crack in her armor large enough to let someone in, and however much she loves him, she lets him go when she has reason to believe that his free will has been compromised. She does it again when she suspects that her own has been, too. In the final pages, Lark betrays herself. She makes the choice to keep the last, cursed flower petal in order to tie a boy to her whether he wants it or not. She doesn't know if the curse is still active, but she's willing to risk it. She's willing to deprive him of free will if it means that she gets to keep him. She accepts the role of the villain in her own story. Openly. and without fear or regret.

As I stated above, it is a very human act. Each of us would do anything to keep the people that we love with us, but not like this. Lark has spent her entire life protecting the free will of others and for her to do this.... it went against her characterization and it didn't make sense to me.

I can see what Ernshaw was ultimately trying to do. She was trying to maintain ambiguity around the curse and around the ending, but she could've done it in a way that didn't unravel her entire book and disrespect her character. If she allowed Lark to learn that she deserves love and if she allowed her to take the risk, to make that jump... this book would have been powerful beyond words. We are living in an era in which people are living behind screens; in which dating is a nightmare because everyone is afraid to commit, afraid to live. Afraid of heartbreak. Afraid of temporary. In the saving of that one flower petal, she destroys that. For me, she destroyed the book, too. Even in the epiogue, she contradicts herself. She states that the flowers are gone, the garden destroyed; but people still stumble on a flower and the curse endures and both can't be true at once. That might be fixed in editing, but it bothered me. It felt like she couldn't decide on an ending and like she wanted to be ambiguous but also not.

The truth is, I wanted to give it an even lower rating, but I loved the bulk of it so much that I couldn't do it.

I think that the ending is going to be extremely divisive among readers and I look forward to and dread the discourse

It had a ton of promise but ended up being a little repetitive. I was hoping for a happier outcome for FMC as well.

I was so excited to read this book by one of my favorite aesthetic authors. I love Shea Ernshaw's haunting prose and poetic descriptions! This story in particular was very appealing to me based on a concept I haven't seen before—enchanted tulips. I was swept away by the generations-long love curse and the family's quest to break the spell. I was simply entranced, just like the characters, falling hopelessly in love with this tragic (yet hopeful) tale.

I absolutely adore anything Shea Ernshaw writes. She is one of my top three favorite authors and i would literally read anything she publishes.

And she’s done it again! The Beautiful Maddening was absolutely fantastic! The author wrote a story that was so well written I found myself flying through the pages, unable to put the book down, pondering what would happen next. My favorite piece of this entire story was how believable the characters were.

The writing is clear and clean, and very immersive. The book hums along at a good clip, but the pacing makes sure we're given time to breathe between plot-intensifying moments. The story was absolutely engaging and the work that went into the settings was noticeable and superb. I felt absolutely transported and I'm so incredibly glad I was able to read an arc of this story.

This book was beautifully poetic in its prose. It was a slower paced love story and while I am glad that I read it, it was a little tougher to continue with the story as it was slower paced. The author was creative and wove her story well, but ultimately it just wasn't my style.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. My opinion is entirely my own.

The madness of love has never been portrayed as clearly as The Beautiful Maddening showed it. I was fascinated. This book was all about emotional autonomy, the reciprocity of love, and the difficulty of cutting ties.
The Goode family is cursed, or blessed, by their blood-streaked tulips, which cause their locals to fall in love with them every spring. Lark plans to escape after her 18th birthday, to finally be free of this generational burden, but in the days before she's about to leave, she meets a boy who changes her ideas about love. Oak is seemingly immune to their family curse, where everyone who even looks at them falls in obsessive love, and they grow close in a way Lark can't afford if she's trying to escape. Then her town goes mad, and Lark needs to sacrifice everything to save the people who've hated her since birth.
I loved the writing style; deep and descriptive while not being overly flowery. Every word had a double meaning. And while this book is literally about love, exploring its highs and lows and questioning if it's even real, it's more than a romance. It's mystery, it's life advice, it's a deep dive into feelings of connection and betrayal. Lark is so complex and I love her for that. She's someone people would label as morally gray, especially by the end, but when you think about it, she's in all of us. She's just human and she deserves to be free.
Thank you to Simon Teen for the ARC! All opinions are my own.

The tale of heartbreak and love is as old as time, however the author wove an updated, suspenseful tale to interested readers. The story revolves around a small town girl, who is a senior in high school. This girl feels invisible, but also cursed. Her life has been impacted with a generational “curse.” She struggles to find her way out the town, the curse, and whether or not she will feel love without the curse. There is some supernatural, fairy-tale vibes to the book, but it is written with a more realistic perspective and introspection of what is important in life. This book would be suitable for ages/maturity of 8th grade and older.

I’ve read a lot of Shea Ernshaw’s books and this one also didn’t disappoint! I felt it was a little repetitive in parts but I think the author really knows how to use words magically! I really enjoyed this story and the characters! Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for a copy of the arc in return for an honest review!

A field of flowers controls how other people in town feel about the twins. One twin never wants to leave and the other can’t wait to be free.
This book starts out slow but it’s worth the read once it picks up.

Content Warning: parental neglect, trespassing, flood

+ This is a really interesting book that starts off with two teens who are twins, Archer and Lark. They live in a very small town and their family name is cursed because of the tulips that grow in their yard. Yes, magical tulips. Apparently the tulips have so much pheromone that anyone who is carrying the tulip will have people fall in love with them. It’s why Archer can get the girls he wants, it’s how he survives. It’s why Lark wants to leave the town and never look back because how can she tell how really loves her if the tulip draws people to her?

+ Lark meets a boy, Oak, who claims he is from another town over, and that the tulips don’t affect him. During Spring when the tulips are in bloom, the town is in a frenzy. The romance between Lark and Oak is insta-love and heavy but written beautifully because who isn’t scared and vulnerable when falling in love? The author captures all of it – the feelings, fear, not being sure, the questions, the push and pull, the running away, and the wanting. Questioning love was the whole point of the story. We see Lark and her aversion to love because how her parents left them. And with her romance with Oak, she doesn’t know if it’s the tulips or if it’s real. And is it love or obsession?

~ If you don’t like insta-love and angst you might not like this. It actually triggered memories of my first real heartbreak when I was young, but in a good way since I can look back without any bad feelings. So in essence, this story did it’s job in capturing young love and heartbreak and questioning what love is. I mean, who knows what it is in your teen years. But everyone at that age thinks they know.

~ The parents were just non-existent in this book. They left these kids to fend for themselves! Who does that? Addictive tulips or not…talk about parental neglect.

~ I would have loved to get more information about the family curse, and where it originates. Also the ending is an interesting choice for sure!

Final Thoughts:

Oh to be young and in love dealing with all the unknowns, fears and obsession. It’s not fun when you aren’t sure it’s reciprocated and to make matters worse, you add magic, potent tulips that enhances the feelings? Sounds like madness. I think the young adults will enjoy this one. It was a bit too dramatic for me, but I did love how the author captured the madness of falling in love.

What is love if not madness?

Set in the town of Cutwater, where the Goode family's tulips bloom with an intoxicating magic each spring, creating an alluring, dangerous atmosphere to anyone who draws too close. Archer welcomes the attention and gifts that the tulips bring, his sister Lark dreads the season. She anxiously awaits for its end, but when the tulips are stolen, the entire town descends into madness. Only Oak, a boy from the neighboring town, remains immune to the tulips' call, or does he?

The novel reminds me of ‘Practical Magic’, with its bittersweet exploration of whether love is truly real when magic is in play. The question becomes painfully clear: when you fall for someone under the influence of something as powerful as the tulips’ enchantment, how can you ever know if it’s real love, or if it’s simply the magic at work? The concept is both captivating and heartbreaking, and the sense of uncertainty drives the narrative, adding an emotional weight that lingers long after the last page is turned.

Lark is a character rooted in hesitation and fear, shaped by a family legacy of failed relationships. She embodies the struggle to trust in love when it has been tainted by doubt and loss. Her reluctance to let anyone get too close is understandable, but her journey is one of growth, and watching her face both the town’s scrutiny and her own self-doubt is sad to see but makes you root for her all the more. As Lark meets Oak, someone who makes her question her fear of love, the emotional stakes grow higher, and the tension between her desire for connection and her fear of betrayal is palpable.

The romance is beautiful yet filled with tension, and the ever-present threat of the tulips and their curse kept me on edge. It’s impossible not to be drawn into Lark and Oak’s story, especially as they navigate the blurry line between magic and genuine affection. The ending, however, is where the novel truly resonates with a quiet sadness. The question of whether their love is real, or merely a byproduct of the tulips’ enchantment, remains unanswered, and while this open ending may leave some readers craving resolution, it also speaks to the very core of Lark’s fears. Sometimes, it’s too much to face the truth, especially when it means confronting the possibility that love—pure, untainted love—might not exist at all.

If you're a fan of Taylor Swift’s song “The Prophecy,” this book is a perfect fit for you, delivering that same ache in your chest and that emotional longing that you can't quite shake.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**