#acsdal

[good-books-to-read]

Beauty & the Beast

A curse so dark and Lonely (ACSDAL) by Briged Kemmerer

Of beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay

Of curses and kisses by Sandhya Menon

A Court Of Thorns And Roses (ACOTAR) by Sarah J. Maas

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

[neverlearnedtoread]

A Curse So Dark and Lonely

⭐⭐⭐⭐; it is a truth solely acknowledged by me that the more cringefail a love interest is, the better the romance

Oh?? 👌😉😏

fairytale retelling! i love retellings of well-known stories. something something telling the same stories as our ancestors and our descendants binds humanity together something something

it takes a while to come to light, but the love interest is one of those 'head before heart' idiots. he's genuinely shrewd, politically savvy, and calculating, i.e. exactly the sort of person who doesnt fall in love easily. which makes him being the 'beast' in this beauty and the beast retelling so compelling! he's trying SO hard to engineer feelings and its just not working 😭

following off the above point: the love interest thinks he is inherently unlovable. nothing is juicier than someone who thinks they're too hard to love being proven wrong!

No.. ❌🤢🤮

isekai story, which as a trope teeters on the edge of losing me completely on principle; Kemmerer did manage to add enough details to keep me from totally losing my suspension of belief

just enough 'not like other girls' energy in the main character to make the first 50-100 pages hard to get through. i know its crazy, but consider: sometimes when a girl is kidnapped it's okay for her to have some level of caution / fear??

love triangle attempted(?) - wild choice from the author to make the guardsman hotter than the prince. i mean i get it, but if you're going to do that, can we not have the reason she doesn't choose him be so obviously and singularly because it wouldn't break the curse?

Summary: Harper, an 18-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, has a lot of problems - her mum has cancer, her father's a deadbeat who left them indebted to loan sharks, and her brother Jake is now working for said loan sharks to pay off those debts. Harper's always felt like a liability - too weak to help, let alone protect anyone - but when she sees a dodgy guy knock a girl unconscious in an alleyway, she has to try. Of course, no good deed goes unpunished - in the tussle, Harper finds herself magically transported to a parallel world with a whole new set of problems, including a cursed prince, an evil enchantress, and no way home.

Concept: 💭💭💭 Honestly, I didn't think too highly of this one! I had heard various criticisms about the prince being too broody and the sense of 'not like other girls' throwing others off, and it was selling itself as an unapologetic YA Beauty and the Beast retelling, so I wasn't thinking that this book would do anything crazy for me because Beauty and the Beast as a fairytale isn't my favourite.

Some spoilers under the cut!

Execution: 💥💥💥 On the whole, this book met my expectations exactly where I held them, which was a typical YA fantasy romance. I hold nothing against books that give me exactly what I expected - if I didn't think a book would suit my reading tastes, I wouldn't pick it up in the first place! I did have a hard time at the start - I'm pretty sensitive to 'not like other girls' vibes, so harper really grated on me, but once she and rhen understood each other better I was having a lot more fun. I kept pinballing between enjoying it (rhen being bad at romance) and rolling my eyes at it (harper being too Strong Women Feminist) through the middle but by the time we hit the 'i have to go home to see my family before its too late' story beat, the book was clawing its way to a solid 4 stars.

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤ Despite being a predictable YA fantasy romance, Prince Rhen was a pleasant surprise. It is my personal (and therefore, correct) taste that male love interests are best when they are, at heart, cringefail. Rhen fits this criteria perfectly - he can wine and dine and politick with the best of them, but what he wants to do is save his people, and for that he needs someone to fall in love with him for realsies. He is wholly unable to accomplish both (on account of him being very shit at love) until Harper jostles him forcibly out of his holding pattern - he tells her he's doomed to fail, and she still convinces him to wholeheartedly try. It makes Harper not only the heroine of the story, but specifically Rhen's saviour - that's true romance, babey!! Their chemistry was the cornerstone of me rating the book 4 stars - with special shoutout to Lilith being shamelessly used as a plot device to make the romance go. We love an evil enchantress who is petty and bitchy.

Favourite Moment: The sweetest moment of the book was definitely Harper inviting Rhen into her room after learning Lilith tortures him every night. It was such a genuinely heartfelt moment that brought them together! But I love mess, so my actual favourite moment is when they kiss right before Harper leaves for DC, only for Harper to recoil from the sharp scales growing over Rhen's skin. The horror!! The drama!! The 'if you haven't fallen in love with me at this point, you certainly won't now'!!! and then Harper just going home without any resolution at all. NO ONE ELSE was having fun in that scene but me! and THAT'S BEAUTIFUL 😝

Favourite Character: Prince Vincent Aldrhen of Emberfall, cringefail king. Yes I understand he's horrible for any number of reasons, and no, I will not be retracting my statement. There's nothing more fun to me than a character who is convinced they are unlovable and has the evidence (and track record!!!) to prove it. This dude was like 'kissing this girl i like is more emotionally devastating than being magically tortured by a crazy evil enchantress every night because I will only be able to do it the once'. I can't NOT root for him to be dicked down!!

[simpysoupyrey]

Intro to Me ;)

Hello! I'm Rey!! Info:

She/They

Teenager(s scare the living shit out of me)

Nonbinary Omnisexual (lowk don't even know what I am 😭😭)

Fav Color: Black, green, purple

Fav Music Genre(s): Krushclub, K-Pop, K-Rock, J-Pop, J-Rock, Rock

Fav Music Artists: 6arelyhuman, asteria, The Rose, BTS, KARD, Ado, LiSA, MCR, Nirvana

Fav Anime: Demon Slayer/KNY

Fav Manga: Go for it, Nakamura!/Ganbare, Nakamura-kun!

Fandoms:

Love And Deepspace/LADS

Demon Slayer/KNY

My Hero Academia/BNHA

Haikyuu!!

A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR)

A Curse so Dark and Lonely (ACSDAL) (Underrated ahh fandom/series)

Krushclub(?)(The tea goes crazy)

rey out xoxo ♥️💋

[oblivion-books]

“Failure isn't absolute, just because you couldn't save everyone doesn't mean you didn't save anyone.”

ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ― Brigid Kemmerer, A Curse So Dark and Lonely

[caitsbooks]

"When the world seems darkest, there exists the greatest opportunity for light.”

BookTok || Goodreads || Bookstagram || Twitter  || Reviews

[maricanread]

(A curse so dark and lonely - chapter 53)

Harper's finally got it

[skumreads]

Dreaming about color coded bookshelves

[allisoinreynolds]

BOOKS READ IN 2022: A CURSE SO DARK AND LONELY (& CURSEBREAKERS SERIES), BY BY BRIGID KEMMERER. Failure isn't absolute, just because you couldn't save everyone doesn't mean you didn't save anyone.

[lifeishell005]

[kiwichaeng]

hi hello Rhen is deserving of love and forgiveness

[booksandbumblebees]

"the most dangerous person at the party is always the girl sitting alone with a book "

- Brigid Kemmerer

[reverie-quotes]

I want so desperately to turn it into more, to see where this blossoming attraction will lead. But I have come close before. I have found this moment before. The only difference is that I have never wanted it so badly.

— Brigid Kemmerer, A Curse so Dark and Lonely

[weirdoismymiddlename]

so

we've gone from this

to this

to this

to this

to his favourite word again

to this

wonderful :D

[maricanread]

"I wish she had. Not because of the curse, or because of Karis Luran, or because of Emberfall. Because I have fallen in love with her"

(A curse so dark and lonely - chapter 38)

Yet another quote from Rhen's PoV and I'm not even ashamed.

[jessread-s]

✩🏰🥀 Review:

“A Curse So Dark and Lonely” is the “Beauty and the Beast” retelling of my dreams! Kemmerer tells the story from Rhen and Harper’s points-of-view, giving us both Belle and the Beast’s perspectives, which I enjoyed. While Rhen share’s the Beast’s arrogance, Harper is no Belle. She’s much better! When she is kidnapped from Washington DC and taken to the land of Emberfall, she is no longer able to benefit from her brother’s protection. She learns how to handle an assortment of weapons in order to defend herself in her new environment, transforming into a badass warrior princess. Her cerebral palsy does not get in the way of her becoming this version of herself and she proves to the people around her that she can do anything able-bodied people can do. I truly love the dis/ability representation in this novel! Rhen also undergoes many changes as a character. He initially isolated himself from his kingdom to protect his people from the beast. Harper helps him come to the realization that his absence was more harmful than helpful. His arrogance slowly gives way to selflessness, showing that deep down inside he has always cared for his people and would give his life for them. Kemmerer writes slow burn well! Rhen falls first. He grows fiercely protective of Harper and does everything he can to get her home, acknowledging that her departure would leave him prey to the curse. The longer Harper stays in Emberfall, however, the more she falls in love with the kingdom and the prince she thought was her enemy. There is just so much to love about this book, which is why it instantly made my favorites list! If you have not read “A Curse So Dark and Lonely” already, do yourself a favor and pick it up!

➤ 4.5 stars

Cross-posted to: Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads | StoryGraph

@brigidkemmererwrites​

[effulgentstrokes]