Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Cursed

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Cursed by Marissa Meyer

45 reviews

erebus53's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Lengthier than a lot of Marissa Meyer's books, this sequel to Gilded tells the rest of a story woven from fairytales that might seem familiar to us. The structure is broad in scope but rumbles along at a good clip.

This fairytale retelling is quite different to Meyer's more futuristic Lunar Chronicles, as it keeps its roots firmly in the pseudomedieval past. It does have twists though. It's not set in OUR past. It is a distinct world with different (but similar) gods and monsters. I found myself well at home with griffons and basilisks (though I did go wandering to figure out whether it's a basilisk or a cockatrice, and found that in most literature the two names are interchangeable).

Having a character who is blessed/cursed to be a storyteller, prone to lying or withholding the truth, was agonising for me to read (as a compulsive blurt) but it was consistent and true to the character. It was good to run into some of the bit-characters that were in the first book too.

Having been grossly disappointed by the Stars Above short story collection and it's frustratingly boring weddings and heteronormative drivel, it was really refreshing for me to see how Meyer challenged that in this book. For starters the gods in her pantheon transcend gender. Each of them is referred to as They, rather than He or Her, and why not; these are powerful beings who can change their form at will. The other thing that made me smile was that two of the weddings in the story were gay marriages (not an eyelid batted nor an eyebrow raised thank goodness!). Having a huge celebration and joyous whimsy directly after a huge boss battle felt like a load off from the drear and tense parts of the story, and I enjoyed it despite myself. (Bring it in Marissa, all is forgiven).

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sylvia_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book went a lot darker than I thought, but I’d really recommend it to people who don’t have a problem with that.
Because it was really pretty good, there were some twists I saw coming and some I didn’t and overall it was just a very good mix that kept me on the edge of my seat. The story of rumpelstiltken was not as prominent anymore, but then we had most covered already in the first book.
Just. I really liked it. Read it.

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k_galloway's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

An inclusive story with great lore and world building that’s completely clotheslined by cringy troupes and unnecessary violence against children.

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poisonenvy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Marissa Meyer remains one of my favourite authors. I didn't reread Gilded before starting this, and while part of me wishes I did, I actually remembered a fair amount from that book already, so it wasn't strictly necessary (the whole duology will be getting a reread though, and probably soon).

There was a lot of dark in this book, but also a lot of light. I found myself living the Erlking more than I thought I would. The pacing was excellent. I listened to probably a little more than half of this this book (read the other half physically), and the narrator was also great.

And that ending. THAT ENDING. Chef's kiss.

I make no secret about my hatred of the forced happy ending. The "Oh no, someone must die for us to win the day they MUST but oh look, through the power of idfk love or whatever, they're MAGICALLY RESURRECTED for no reason whatsoever" ending. It's one of my biggest pet peeves.

Meyer manages to make it work. There's groundwork laid out for them coming back. There's actual magical explainations for them coming back. It works, and it works so well. I love it.

Meyer has made fairytale retellings into an art form, and it's an artform she excells at. I understand her next novel will be a companion book to Instant Karma, but I'm excited to see what her next retelling is, too.

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