Cursed by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Yesterday I finished Cursed and I sat in front of my computer for about 20 minutes, trying to write a review of it.  Somehow I couldn’t do it so I ended up watching Arrow instead and I basically just stared at Grant Gustin’s face for an hour.So now, almost 24 hours after finishing the book, I’m attempting to write the review again. This may not be the best review because honestly I don’t know how I feel about it all. If you’ve never heard of Cursed, which is highly likely, here’s the synopsis for you:

Dying sucks
…and high school senior Ember McWilliams knows firsthand.

After a fatal car accident, her gifted little sister brought her back. Now anything Ember touches dies. And that, well, really blows.

Ember operates on a no-touch policy with all living things–including boys. When Hayden Cromwell shows up, quoting Oscar Wilde and claiming her curse is a gift, she thinks he’s a crazed cutie. But when he tells her he can help control it, she’s more than interested. There’s just one catch: Ember has to trust Hayden’s adopted father, a man she’s sure has sinister reasons for collecting children whose abilities even weird her out. However, she’s willing to do anything to hold her sister’s hand again. And hell, she’d also like to be able to kiss Hayden. Who wouldn’t?

But when Ember learns the accident that turned her into a freak may not’ve been an accident at all, she’s not sure who to trust. Someone wanted her dead, and the closer she gets to the truth, the closer she is to losing not only her heart, but her life.

For real this time.

This was my first Jennifer L. Armentrout book and I got it from Hodder via bookbridgr in exchange for an honest review, so thank you very much. Jennifer L Armentrout is quite a big author over in the US but I’ve never seen her books in shops in the UK. When I saw this one on bookbridgr, I decided to pick it up simply because it sounded interesting. I’ve never heard anyone talk about this one before so it’s obvious that this one is one of her lesser known books. I also decided to pick up this one because it’s a standalone and I didn’t want to commit to another series. However the fact that it was a standalone contributed to my slight disliking towards it. I felt as if everything was too rushed. The whole storyline of this book would have been much better if it was spread over a few books because it felt as if everything was just being forced upon me and while I like to read fast paced books, this one just had too much going on. The plot line itself was intriguing and I loved the whole idea of it but it could have been executed better.

My main problem with this book was the characters. While I enjoyed Ember herself and I thought she was a great protagonist, I feel as if the secondary characters could have been improved on. Hayden, who is the main love interest, just irritated and annoyed me. The love story as well as the plot reminded me of Shatter Me. In Shatter Me, Juliette fell in love with the one person she could touch and that is what I feel happened in this book. I didn’t feel as if Hayden and Ember really loved each other. I feel as if the love story was just completely unnecessary and we could have done without it. The other characters we never grew to know. I didn’t like any of them because I didn’t know any of them and that decreased my enjoyment of this book.

The mystery element of this book was what kept me reading. I wanted to know who was behind it all and I wanted to know what actually happened. When we did actually find out, I was shocked but again we didn’t have enough time to process it because 10 pages later, the book was finished. The ending to this book left it open and I wasn’t a fan of that. I do sometimes enjoy open ended books but this one just wasn’t satisfying enough.

Overall, I did enjoy this book and I think that it’s a good mystery novel but the love story declined my liking of it and I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the book had been longer and more spaced out or if it was a series. While I gave this book 3 stars on goodreads, I’m going to try a new way of rating all of my books based on different aspects, therefore giving it an average percentage.

Plot: 75%. It was a great plot but at times I found that it fell quite flat.

Cover: 60%. It’s a nice cover but should she really be lying in a bed of grass if she can kill the plants?

Protagonist: 79%. She was great but at times really annoying.

Love story: 30%. I really didn’t like it at all.

Writing: 55%. It was enjoyable and I shall definitely be picking up more of her books in the future just to see if they are better than this one.

Pacing: 45%.  Everything felt way too rushed.

Overall: 58%. It was enjoyable, there was just quite a few aspects that I didn’t like.

 

Sofia