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3.07 AVERAGE
3.07 AVERAGE
I was not expecting Cursed to be the story that it was. I found the magic and the Fey intriguing. I was entertained throughout reading Cursed. I felt the writing style read quickly. The tone of Cursed was on the younger side while the themes and events were on a more mature side due to graphic violence and detailed massacres. Answers to pressing questions are answered throughout Cursed. There are some interesting reveals. The ending was open-ended. Overall, I felt Cursed was well written, and I could see myself continuing the series. I don't think I would reread Cursed due to the graphic violence.
Content Guide:
Gore. Violence. Blood. Amputation. Nudity. Lesions from leprosy. Sensuality. Intoxication.
Content Guide:
Gore. Violence. Blood. Amputation. Nudity. Lesions from leprosy. Sensuality. Intoxication.
Not really a fan of Frank Miller's art in this one. It didn't seem to fit here. Also didn't love the writing of this overall. Pretty meh.
adventurous
dark
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was an absolute trainwreck.
I'm not super into Arthurian legend and pretty much only know the basics from watching stuff like Excalibur and First Knight, so I went into this not really looking for a particularly good Arthur retelling and willing to settle for simply a good book. Spoiler alert: at no point in time did I get that.
This book was written by a screenwriter and it clearly shows. Writing a good screenplay and a good novel are two completely different things and it's obvious that Wheeler didnt bother to learn any of the mechanics for the latter before he sat down to write this novel. You are constantly being told what is going on instead of shown and it's not an immersive experience at all. I found myself skimming it most of the time. There are so many lines that are uncomfortably unnecessary and I think my favorite is a scene where Uther is talking to his mother and he reaches for a pastry but she shakes her head to I dictate that it's poisoned. This happens THREE MORE TIMES before he finally reaches for a safe one and she nods. And all of it is written out in painstaking detail. It feels like it was adapted straight from a script which doesn't make sense because the dialogue is also very inconsistent and abysmal.
I don't want to be mean, and I know that art it subjective, but I'm just going to say this right off the bat: I hated most of the art. I thought it was unnecessary at the best of times. Most of the art was incredibly confusing to look at, you would often be unable to tell what limbs belonged to what character or who was who in the story. Portraits would be somewhat decent, and there was a full color illustration in the middle the was absolutely gorgeous but other than that the art was GOD awful to me. It doesn't really make sense because I've tended to like most of Frank Miller's work, but I have no clue what was going on with this. Also it's worth mentioning that from the way Nimue was drawn, I thought she was black for the large majority of the book until I realized she wasn't and it was just kind of strange and not okay in my opinion, but I digress.
This novel has nothing to say about anything, no overarching message or theme to bring the book together or even make you feel like the author was trying to say something. The plot was a meandering mess of poorly handled plot points that never went anywhere and ridiculous plot devices that seem to be the only way the author can think to get the characters from Point A to Point B.
Everything that attracted me to the story-Nimue's outcast status, connection to the Hidden, and the prospect of her being a viable opponent against Uther-is thrown out of the window in the first five chapters. Nimue's connection to the Hidden or magic is hardly even mentioned after about the third chapter until the final battle and she never even uses her magic, which is stupid because her entire character in the original legends was a sorcerer. Not to mention the fact that they'd made such a big deal about it just to throw it away on a weird subplot about the sword controlling her.
Nimue is nearly impossible to like, she's reckless and idiotic to an absurd degree and feels like a poorly executed Celaena Sardothien character (who was already a hot mess in her own right.) Despite the book making a big deal about Nimue sacrificing her life for her people at the end (something made bull and void to the reader who already knows that this won't happen and plot armor will protect her), Nimue is disturbingly eager to lay Fey lives on the line to prove stupid points. The Fey Queen thing was absolutely ridiculous and she got her friend killed for the dumbest, most laughable rebellion I have ever read.
Contrary to how everyone feels, I do like the idea of the Red Paladins and I feel like they could go somewhere conceptually, but there's something about them that feels really forced and unnatural, so it's hard to enjoy them.
This book doesn't seem to be grounded in a set time period and it's really jarring when they make reference of real world countries like England, and I don't know why the author didnt go with the obvious choice to set this in a fantasy universe since it pretty much is already.
Despite this being an Arthurian legend, Arthur doesn't really have much of purpose besides being a flakey boy-toy that has no real chemistry with Nimue. He's gone for most of the story after an infuriating use of the misunderstanding trope and then returns to do pretty much nothing, so I don't even know why he was there.
Merlin was probably the worst part. They tried to establish him as being this sneaky wizard with a bunch of tricks up his sleeve, but he still never really managed to accomplish anything. So it just looked like him running around from place to place trying to set up all these clever sub-plots and pretty much all of them blew up in his face when he could have been helping Nimue from the beginning. I didn't understand what the point of making him lose his powers was. It would have been compelling if he proved himself capable of being treacherous without them but he was useless and he ended up getting his powers back at the end anyways just from touching the sword. Also he had Shadow Lords at his disposal who turned against him and that was another plot that went absolutely nowhere.
None of the villains even seem to have a motivation for what they're doing besides being orphaned or having Mommy issues and most of the good characters are boring or annoying so you're left not really wanting to root for anything.
The world building, like everything else, has potential but is so underdeveloped, it could move you to tears. There are different cultures and species of Fey and absolutely none of them are explored, even the main character's own culture. No world building takes place in terms of exploring the setting either so the only thing to do is being whisked around the world with way too many point of view shifts and too many goals happening.
The pacing of the book is absolutely horrendous and there's absolutely no discernable rising action, resolution, or anything. It's incredibly hard to feel out where you are in the story and I spent most of the time confused and skimming the pages. I was about to DNF halfway through but after two weeks, decided that I'd gotten too far to deny myself the fun of finishing to leave this review.
The climax is extremely underwhelming. Besides cutting of one of the main Paladins heads, all Nimue does is swing the sword around and scream before she gets shot with an arrow and the book ends on weird cliffhanger.
Overall, this book is so bad that I won't be watching the Netflix adaptation as I don't want to waste my time with absolutely anything that has the audacity to use this book as source material. Don't bother reading, there are better Arthurian legend tellings and certainly better fantasy novels to spend your money and time on, but I can't say anything against the show, because for all I know it could be really good.
Anyone who read the whole thing should be entitled to financial compensation.
I'm not super into Arthurian legend and pretty much only know the basics from watching stuff like Excalibur and First Knight, so I went into this not really looking for a particularly good Arthur retelling and willing to settle for simply a good book. Spoiler alert: at no point in time did I get that.
This book was written by a screenwriter and it clearly shows. Writing a good screenplay and a good novel are two completely different things and it's obvious that Wheeler didnt bother to learn any of the mechanics for the latter before he sat down to write this novel. You are constantly being told what is going on instead of shown and it's not an immersive experience at all. I found myself skimming it most of the time. There are so many lines that are uncomfortably unnecessary and I think my favorite is a scene where Uther is talking to his mother and he reaches for a pastry but she shakes her head to I dictate that it's poisoned. This happens THREE MORE TIMES before he finally reaches for a safe one and she nods. And all of it is written out in painstaking detail. It feels like it was adapted straight from a script which doesn't make sense because the dialogue is also very inconsistent and abysmal.
I don't want to be mean, and I know that art it subjective, but I'm just going to say this right off the bat: I hated most of the art. I thought it was unnecessary at the best of times. Most of the art was incredibly confusing to look at, you would often be unable to tell what limbs belonged to what character or who was who in the story. Portraits would be somewhat decent, and there was a full color illustration in the middle the was absolutely gorgeous but other than that the art was GOD awful to me. It doesn't really make sense because I've tended to like most of Frank Miller's work, but I have no clue what was going on with this. Also it's worth mentioning that from the way Nimue was drawn, I thought she was black for the large majority of the book until I realized she wasn't and it was just kind of strange and not okay in my opinion, but I digress.
This novel has nothing to say about anything, no overarching message or theme to bring the book together or even make you feel like the author was trying to say something. The plot was a meandering mess of poorly handled plot points that never went anywhere and ridiculous plot devices that seem to be the only way the author can think to get the characters from Point A to Point B.
Everything that attracted me to the story-Nimue's outcast status, connection to the Hidden, and the prospect of her being a viable opponent against Uther-is thrown out of the window in the first five chapters. Nimue's connection to the Hidden or magic is hardly even mentioned after about the third chapter until the final battle and she never even uses her magic, which is stupid because her entire character in the original legends was a sorcerer. Not to mention the fact that they'd made such a big deal about it just to throw it away on a weird subplot about the sword controlling her.
Nimue is nearly impossible to like, she's reckless and idiotic to an absurd degree and feels like a poorly executed Celaena Sardothien character (who was already a hot mess in her own right.) Despite the book making a big deal about Nimue sacrificing her life for her people at the end (something made bull and void to the reader who already knows that this won't happen and plot armor will protect her), Nimue is disturbingly eager to lay Fey lives on the line to prove stupid points. The Fey Queen thing was absolutely ridiculous and she got her friend killed for the dumbest, most laughable rebellion I have ever read.
Contrary to how everyone feels, I do like the idea of the Red Paladins and I feel like they could go somewhere conceptually, but there's something about them that feels really forced and unnatural, so it's hard to enjoy them.
This book doesn't seem to be grounded in a set time period and it's really jarring when they make reference of real world countries like England, and I don't know why the author didnt go with the obvious choice to set this in a fantasy universe since it pretty much is already.
Despite this being an Arthurian legend, Arthur doesn't really have much of purpose besides being a flakey boy-toy that has no real chemistry with Nimue. He's gone for most of the story after an infuriating use of the misunderstanding trope and then returns to do pretty much nothing, so I don't even know why he was there.
Merlin was probably the worst part. They tried to establish him as being this sneaky wizard with a bunch of tricks up his sleeve, but he still never really managed to accomplish anything. So it just looked like him running around from place to place trying to set up all these clever sub-plots and pretty much all of them blew up in his face when he could have been helping Nimue from the beginning. I didn't understand what the point of making him lose his powers was. It would have been compelling if he proved himself capable of being treacherous without them but he was useless and he ended up getting his powers back at the end anyways just from touching the sword. Also he had Shadow Lords at his disposal who turned against him and that was another plot that went absolutely nowhere.
None of the villains even seem to have a motivation for what they're doing besides being orphaned or having Mommy issues and most of the good characters are boring or annoying so you're left not really wanting to root for anything.
The world building, like everything else, has potential but is so underdeveloped, it could move you to tears. There are different cultures and species of Fey and absolutely none of them are explored, even the main character's own culture. No world building takes place in terms of exploring the setting either so the only thing to do is being whisked around the world with way too many point of view shifts and too many goals happening.
The pacing of the book is absolutely horrendous and there's absolutely no discernable rising action, resolution, or anything. It's incredibly hard to feel out where you are in the story and I spent most of the time confused and skimming the pages. I was about to DNF halfway through but after two weeks, decided that I'd gotten too far to deny myself the fun of finishing to leave this review.
The climax is extremely underwhelming. Besides cutting of one of the main Paladins heads, all Nimue does is swing the sword around and scream before she gets shot with an arrow and the book ends on weird cliffhanger.
Overall, this book is so bad that I won't be watching the Netflix adaptation as I don't want to waste my time with absolutely anything that has the audacity to use this book as source material. Don't bother reading, there are better Arthurian legend tellings and certainly better fantasy novels to spend your money and time on, but I can't say anything against the show, because for all I know it could be really good.
Anyone who read the whole thing should be entitled to financial compensation.
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
sad
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4.5 I’m thoroughly pissed that there isn’t a sequel
Camelot stories are catnip to me. I loved this story.