Book Review: THE CURSES by Laure Eve

Genre: Contemporary Fantasy
Age Range: YA
Star Rating: 3 stars
Series: Yes - second book in duology

*SPOILER ALERT: contains SPOILERS for THE GRACES*

Synopsis:

Summer Grace has had enough of secrets. They’ve been tearing her family apart for generations, and one in particular caused the death of her best friend, Wolf. But now Wolf is back. Supposedly returned from having run away – though Summer knows that’s not what happened. He was resurrected, brought back to life by her ex-best friend – an ex-best friend who is now swearing revenge on her family.

And her family won’t believe that whatever this thing is, it’s not Wolf. He’s dangerous, and Summer is desperate – so desperate that she might just be forced to turn to the one friend she never thought she’d turn to again. Because something is stirring – something so powerful that even the Graces will fear it. 

Synopsis taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.

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Review:

I wish this series had a more typical book design, you know, with a blurb rather than a quote on the back. Or, at the very least, a blurb inside (instead of an extract which doesn’t help), if it insists on having a terribly unhelpful jacket design that gives you no information on the book. Then I would have had half a clue what this book was about, and not been thrown by the fact it’s narrated by Summer (I was leant it by a friend, hence no clue what I was getting myself in for, just like with the first book.)

Once I had adjusted to it not being River, I rather liked the narrator shift. It was quite fun to see someone on the inside of the Grace family rather than outside. Summer’s perspective on her siblings and life is, naturally, quite different to River. Summer isn’t romanticising it, so the more mundane and thorny sides come through better.

It also allowed River, the protagonist of the last, to be not quite the villain, but a dangerous element to contend with. Seeing a protagonist switch to an antagonist (ish) is interesting and helps separate the two books.

I did guess that the villain was someone pretending to help, and then really struggled to follow the finale after the reveal. The magic of the ritual and all the chaos of various people being possessed or not, struggling against something (themselves?) was a little hard to follow.

I think part of it is because the magic system (feels like it) is designed to have no rules. There are traditions and rituals, but they can be broken with a strong enough will. And the characters do. But therefore not having rules makes it hard to understand what can and can’t happen. It undercuts a bit of the tension – and a lot of the comprehension. Things just happen, getting fixed or not, and it feels like it happens on the whim of the plot.

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Read my reviews of other books by Laure Eve:

The Graces (this series):

• THE GRACES (#1)

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