A Curse So Dark and Lonely is a Beauty and the Beast retelling. If you enjoy retellings of this tale about love and sacrifice, then I’m sure you’ll like this book too. And if you like YA, then you have the best of both worlds, a YA retelling.
First things first, A Curse So Dark and Lonely is the first book in the Cursebreakers trilogy. The sequels are A Heart So Fierce and Broken, and A Vow So Bold and Deadly, which was released in January of this year, 2021. I am planning on reading the trilogy, however, I am slow when it comes to reading series, so it will happen some time in the future.
Anyway, Beauty and the Beast are so popular as well as their love story and because this is a retelling, we have a cursed prince who turns into a beast, the enchantress, the girl that will break the curse and of course, all the angst and drama that comes with this popular princess story. However, in A Curse So Dark and Lonely, there are many more things that make it feel unique despite being so similar to Beauty and the Beast.
Honestly, if you ask me if this is one of my favorite Beauty and the Beast retellings, I won’t be able to answer because I have no idea. Yes, I enjoyed this book and I liked Rhen and Harper and Grey and they have a special place in my heart, but I’m not sure if I enjoyed it so that it’s a favorite. I’m planning on rereading it soon because now that the trilogy is complete, I can binge read the books so maybe by then I’ll have an answer. In the meantime, I liked this and I recommend it.
One of the things I liked the most was the fact that Harper, our heroine, has cerebral palsy. I don’t recall reading any book in which the main character has cerebral palsy. I don’t have this, but it was so interesting to read about it and how Harper dealt with it and just learn a little bit more about this disorder. Harper was more than her disability, she was so brave and she didn’t give up easily. I really liked her.
Then there was Rhen. He was so good and my heart broke for him a couple of times because he was struggling with breaking the curse and I just wanted him to be happy and free. His feelings for Harper were so strong and their relationship was so cute!
Grey was also a very interesting character. He was so loyal and his friendship with Rhen was amazing. I won’t say much about him, but I liked him too. I’m not going to lie, and this could be considered a small spoiler and I’m sorry if you think I’m going to “ruin” the book for you, but for a moment I thought there was going to be a love triangle here. I am so happy there wasn’t one because I hate love triangles, if there is one in a story I immediately start to dislike the book, thankfully this was not the case.
This book was told in dual perspective, Harper’s and Rhen’s. And if you’ve read other of my reviews, you might know that I love multiple POVs, I love it when we get more sides of the story than just one! However, the epilogue was told from Grey’s POV and it kind of ended in a cliffhanger so it leaves you wanting to read more. I’m just telling you this for you to have the next book near you.
In conclusion, this is a nice Beauty and the Beast retelling and I enjoyed it a lot. If you like Beauty and the Beast retellings like me, then I’m 100% sure you’re going to like this book. And if you don’t like retellings, I still recommend it because the romance was cute and the fantasy aspect of it was so interesting and well done!
Until the next post!
Happy reading 💙
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