Hi guys, it's Olivia here from Olivia's
Catastrophe and I'm gonna do my very
best to communicate why you need to read
A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer
when I'm only giving you five reasons to
do so. So, what is this book about. This
is a beauty and the beast retelling
where Harper, the main character, has
cerebral palsy. And she gets swept away
into this magical land. She needs to try
and break this curse, which is a curse so
dark and lonely, where the Beast
character, Rhen, turns into a monster at
the end of every month. Which is very
dangerous and his kingdom is falling
apart. Doesn't that sound like every
single beauty and the beast retelling you've
read ever? Yes, it does. Well, I have to
tell you that this is going to be the
best one that you've read ever, o you
definitely need to read it. First reason
you're gonna want to read this book is
because it is so realistic and it is so
unpredictable. And that is the plot. It's
very very realisti. Harper is a
character who takes no nonsense.
She figures things out. I think every beauty and the beast retelling I've read
seems unrealistic in comparison to how
quick Harper is at getting things and
how much she does the most obvious thing
that you would expect to do. And as well
as that it's unpredictable. The pacing in
this book is so fast. There's always
something happening but you're never
entirely lost in the book. And it's
unpredictable. I couldn't predict how
it was gonna end. You can't predict how
it's gonna end. It has more than one
climax. Who wouldn't be happy with that?
This book is fantastic. Then we need to
talk about the humor and the romance. Yes,
I'm putting two things into the second
reason.
In this book the humor is on point. There are moments where the characters
are sarcastic. There are moments where they are
witty. There are moments when they're so
blatant that it becomes funny. It made me
laugh more than once and I love to laugh
when I'm reading and I find that very
hard to find sometimes. So I really
enjoyed laughing in this book. And then
when I talk about the romance, I'm not
gonna tell you how it ends, but I thought
the romance in a beauty and beast
retelling kind of form was very
realistic for how it would be like to
fall in love in this kind of story. That's
not very well explained... You'll have to
read it to find out. Then we need to talk
about the world and all the things that
happen in it. The world building in this
one is really really good. I remember I
was buddy reading this with Jade and at
the beginning I was like oh,
I feel like we might not get a lot of
world-building. BOI, I was wrong. We get
all the world-building in this one. They
don't limit themselves to the castle as
half of the Beauty and the Beast
retelling seem to do for like, the
majority of the story. But no, in this one
we get to explore the world.
I loved exploring Emberfall. The world
building was so good but as well as that
you get a little hint of strategy that
needs to be used in this book, of
politics that needs to be unraveled and
dealt with in this book -- not a hint of it.
Quite a lot actually. And I really
enjoyed that because I love a little
smithering of politics in my books and
strategy planning and all of that.
I loved it, oh my gosh. We have to talk
about the characters. So I feel like
saying there's three main characters in
this one. You can argue with me on that,
maybe you think there's two. But there
are only two perspectives you read and
that is Harper and that is Rhen. They are
the beast and the beauty. Rhen is so like,
sweet. He's doing his best. He really
focuses on his failures and tends to
hyperfocus on those and that is
something I think a lot of people can
relate to. And I feel like he developed
so much throughout this book. From the
beginning to the end but also from his
backstory to where he gets by the end of
the book. Then we also have to talk
about Harper. She has cerebral palsy and as
far as I can tell the representation
seems to be really well done. But in no
way is she a weak character. And even though
she's a strong character she has her own
personality. We do get to see things that
she likes doing and doesn't like doing,
and I usually struggle to enjoy the
main characters because they seem to be
so generalized and they don't seem to
have anything that makes them personally
people who are unique. But Harper and
Rhen. Both have that. And for main
characters I really really like them. However, I have to say the character that
stole the show for me
was Grey the commander. I did a blog post --
I'll link it down below -- on all my
favourite traits of
characters that I tend to love and he
hits almost all of them. He is loyal. He
is practica. He is always on guard, you
know, he's a guard so that makes sense.
And he is just really dedicated to his
friendships and his job. What can I say
about Grey that won't lead to intense
fangirling?
And last but not least the fifth reason why
you need to read this one is Lilith the
villain. So when I was talking to Jade
and discussing this book we talked about
how in the original Beauty and the Beast fairytale The Enchantress is
kind of the mean one in the story. Because the Beast kind of does something
that's not too bad and then she does
this huge punishment, and gives the prince a
huge punishment that not only curses
him but curses all the people in the
castle as well. However, Lilith in this one is a bit
different. She is given enough backstory
for us to maybe not sympathise with her
but also like, sympathise with her. You
can understand why she does what she
does. We can understand that she's not in
the right when she's doing all of the
things that she's doing, and she seems
really twisted. And she is honestly so
evil. Like, I'm scared of Queen Levana but
if her and Queen Levana were in a fight
I don't really know who would win and
that chills me to the bone.
So Lilith was a brilliant villain. I
believed her. We got to see her evil
rather than just being told about it so
I really felt like she was an evil
character. And she was in it just enough
for me to, yeah, get the chills every time
she appeared on page. There's our five
reasons why you could read this book.
Please
read this book. I could go on and on with
more and more reasons but you'd get bored
and you'd get annoyed at me but I would
still be happy. But either way I am
crying and waiting for the sequel. And I
hope that you will read this one and
love it too, then come and talk to me
about it so we can all fangirl together. I'll end the video here. Thank you so
much for watching this book review. Please let
me know in the comment section down
below if you've read A Curse so Dark and Lonely or what is one of your favourite
retellings that you've ever read. Please
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And I'll see you all in the next one. Goodbye!
