I was excited to read this based off of the blurb I read on Netgalley. I felt like it would be an intriguing and mysterious story and I couldn't have been more right. It took me a little bit to get into the book, but after the 50% mark, I became totally enraptured by it.

The story itself is about a line of women named 'the Cole women'. They are said to be cursed by the first Cole woman, Goody Cole, and the curse said that there could never be more than two Cole women alive at the same time. We follow Mabel, Rebecca and Simone, three generations of Cole women, who all of them try to find love and fight the curse. The question is: will they succeed?

What did I like about this book?
- The tone was immediately set in the mysterious prologue
- The different POVs of Simone, Mabel and Rebecca
- I would say this story had a ‘where the crawdads sing’ vibe
- After that 50% mark I couldn't put it down

I have to say I really enjoyed this book, even though Rebecca was delulu sometimes, or well more often than that.

I do have a couple remarks on sentences in this book, as I found quite some mistakes in the writing as it is now. Here's a list of the ones I spotted.
- "The Cole women didn't go the soil;" > I feel like there's a to missing in this sentence to make it right.
- "If I did they'd be mean to be too, Mom!" > I think that last be should be a me.
- "Rebeca probably thought she would be different..." > Rebecca's name is spelled wrong.
- "But she did hate him. She could not." > I think did should be didn't?
- "Rebeca" > There's two more instances where I found Rebecca's name misspelled.
- "Simone felt a since of deja vu..." > I think since should be sense?

And finally I want to thank Netgalley, Crooked Lane Books and Marielle Thompson for providing this eARC. I did really enjoy it despite the mistakes I found and I hope to see it in bookstores in the future (maybe even in Dutch), so I can recommend this book to my own loving mother.

As requested by the approval email, I will post my review both on Goodreads and Storygraph. The review is already up alongside this feedback I give here. This should be accompanied with the links, but I will also give them here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7506349391 AND https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/f3d5cd71-44f9-4d3b-9bc3-782d27a77930
I will post a TikTok with my rating to my account as well either today or tomorrow. https://www.tiktok.com/@louphonehome

I received an ARC for this read.

I hate working out. I hate sweating, I hate exerting effort. But we do it because it’s good for our body or whatever. But then after working out we get this euphoric feeling deep inside us that is pure contentment and just bliss. I promise I have a point. This “workout” metaphor is exactly what I felt when I read The Curse of the Cole Women by Marielle Thompson. The suffering of reading about abusive, misogynistic men, generational trauma exacted towards women, ugh! It was gruelling! It had a bittersweet conclusion but well worth my time spent reading about disgusting men.

The vibe was very Wuthering Heights (imo) the vibe, not the setting, not the characters. It also conjured memories of To Kill a Mockingbird, so really, having those high calibre books as reminders when a reader reads your book means the author done good! The fact that it was painful and begrudging throughout but couldn’t stop myself from turning the page! I couldn’t stop until I knew what the _ is truly going on! Cathartic ending though. I’m tempted to read the author’s previous books (as long as it’s wlw).

Thank you NetGalley for sending me an ARC copy of this book. I really enjoyed how it interweaves the story of 3 generations of women who are believed to be cursed. This is a novel about love, trauma, and persistence.

Not for me, as someone previously stated, the contrast in the queer love vs heterosexual love and how it was described was stark. It was hard to get through the book sometimes because it just wasn’t for me

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A very quick read. I breezed through this book in less than 2 days.

We follow the 3 generations of Cole women as they're navigating love, grief, and trauma. Personally, I enjoyed reading Mabel's POVs the most, and Rebecca's the least.

Throughout the book, the Cole women and the readers were faced with the question whether it's the curse that drove the women to their deaths, or it's the misogyny and ostracization that led to tragedy. I think the incident that made Mabel jumped came out of nowhere, and I don't understand why she hid the note in the book instead of giving it directly to Rebecca. I also don't like the resolution at the end, or how the mental health was handled.

The sapphic element was another disappointment. I like Mabel and Evelyn's relationship, but I hate how they left their relationship unresolved, and never had their closure. I also noticed that the author kept it vague when it came to Mabel and Evelyn's intimate moments. In contrast, Rebecca and her man's intimate scenes were described in detail.

Overall, this book has potential and it may entice readers who are interested in small town's bigotry, mental health issues, and complex mother-daughter dynamics.

I finished this book very quickly! I loved the Cole women and how each generation brought nuance and complexity to the island. I would have liked it to be longer and fleshed out the characters a little more but I guess that's the problem with having generations squashed into one book? maybe it shouldve been a series!