Ever Cursed by Corey Ann Haydu | ARC Review

An Interesting Story, with a Strong Feminist Message, that Ultimately Fell Short

The Highlights:

• Feminist and unapologetic, with important messages
• Complex characters
• Needed way more world-building
• Short, but heavy, so it took me a while to get through

I feel like I need to preface this review by saying that, personally, I’m a little over these kinds of books. I’m not saying they aren’t important, because they are, and I think they are 100% necessary. I can think of dozens of readers I would recommend them too. But for me, I’m just tired, and the real world sucks a lot, so reading another book about a society that’s oppressive toward women really just weighs me down right now. I’m not sure that I would have even said this six months ago, but like I said, I’m just tired now. So, that said, I think personal preference played a huge part in what I liked and disliked about Ever Cursed, and it’s why I just didn’t have as much fun reading it as I’d hoped I would.

Let’s start with the characters. Reagan and Jane are the main characters, and they alternate chapters in the story. I liked both, can’t say that I had a favorite. They were really interesting. All of the characters in Ever Cursed were interesting, but getting a much closer look at Reagan and Jane, at what was going on in their heads, was pretty fascinating. They were so complex, and I appreciated that they were very flawed in their own ways. It made them both feel very real and very relatable. I don’t know if it was intentional, but I felt like those two characters were the best tools used in the book to get important messages across. More than the story, more than the setting, more than the villain, Reagan and Jane were the true heart and soul of this book.

The world building on the other hand… it just didn’t do it for me. It felt very much like a fairy tale, all surface and no depth. Facts were presented, the basis for a story was laid, and that was it. Nothing about the world building made it memorable or outstanding. It all felt very glossed over and bland to me. The book is pretty short, and I feel like minimal world building was the big contributor to that, but it didn’t work for me. It didn’t even help it to be a faster read, I just felt bored by the lack of depth.

The pacing was pretty good. I felt like the story was always moving forward steadily. Like I said though, it’s a really heavy story at times, so despite being fast-paced, I definitely had moments where I had to step away. So I would definitely recommend keeping that in mind. This is a book I needed to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy and I just don’t think I was.

Overall, Ever Cursed wasn’t bad. It had great messages that really have stuck with me over the last few weeks. But I can’t really say I enjoyed reading it. I just think that, with who I am and where I’m at now, this book wasn’t for me.