A Curse so Dark and Lonely

Locations
Call Number: Teen Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Kemmerer, Brigid, Teen Fiction / Kemmerer, Brigid
On Shelf At: Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Pittsfield Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Kemmerer, Brigid	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Kemmerer, Brigid	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown Teen, 1st Floor 4-week checkout	Teen Fiction / Kemmerer, Brigid	4-week checkout	Due 05-11-2024
Westgate Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Kemmerer, Brigid	4-week checkout	Due 05-13-2024

Eighteen for the three hundred twenty-seventh time, Prince Rhen despairs of breaking the curse that turns him into a beast at the end of each day until feisty Harper enters his life.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Wonderful take on an old classic! submitted by mshivaprasad on July 20, 2020, 1:42pm I absolutely love a modern take on an old classic. So when I found out about this book, I had to get my hands on it. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone considering it.

Beauty and the Beast retelling but done well submitted by laursanc6 on June 24, 2021, 5:27pm Amazing, astonishing, and I loved it. I don't have enough words to express how much I enjoyed this book. After reading about it I was like okay another beauty and the beast retelling that's cool. I also saw that our main character Harper has cerebral palsy which I will admit I don't know a ton about but I was super interested in learning about it seeing the representation.

Let's start with Harper...my girl is everything I could want in protagonist. She's a bad b and she doesn't let anything stop her and I admire her commitment to her family. One thing I do have to say is that it did come off as sort of I'm not like other girls in the beginning and I really wish that whole trope would have been skipped. Like what's so wrong with wanting to wear a pretty dress? Nothing and yes it's cool that Harper wants to fight and yada yada but those things aren't a measure of it she's "better" that other girls. While her cerebral palsy isn't talked about a bunch I was always cognizant of it and I really appreciated that she fought to be treated the same and that the others learned to not look down on her or treat her differently simply because of her cp.

Anyway, I wasn't vibing with Rhen at first but you know he grew on me especially at the end. Also, I definitely was team Grey for a while but I'm not sure now but I do really want to see what happens next with him. I'm gonna leave it at that for the boys because I don't have a lot left to say without spoiling things.

I think the political aspects of the book were interesting enough and It was nice to see Harper and Rhen caring for the people of Emberfall instead of acting like they don't exist. I especially liked the discussion of how you can never help everyone and whether helping some but not others is harmful in the long run.

I don't love writing about the whole plot of books because I would rather have readers experience but I'll just say a few things. The plot follows pretty closely to the original beauty and the beast so it can be predictable but I didn't find it unenjoyable. I hate Lilith so much which I guess is a good thing because she's the villian lol. The romance is nice and not too rushed in my opinion and I'm excited to see things develop in the next book and the future book.

So in conclusion I 100% recommend this book and I'm giving it 5/5 stars! In fact this may be one of my favorite YA books I've read.