Cursed

*I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

DNF @ 25%

Having grown up with a mother who loves King Arthur and other similar stories and even has an The Lady of Shalott painting hung up, you can say that I've grown fond of the stories myself. I'm always game to try out a re-telling of King Arthur. When I saw this one available and noted it would also be on Netflix, I knew I wanted to read it before eventually watching it.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't stay interested. The story itself is intriguing–I want to know what will happen and the characters are well thought out. But... ??? There is something missing. It doesn't feel like a novel. Now, I'm not sure if this is because of my prior knowledge that this would be a TV show, but I can totally see this as a show. I see exactly how each scene is going to play out and for a TV show a lot of this works, but in written form it feels a bit scattered.

I also think the drawing hurt the story more than add to it, which is a shame.

I tried reading a little bit of this book every few days, but I was slogging through it and as someone who reads about a book a day, this book was taking forever. Obviously it just wasn't working for me. And yet, I see promise to it. We've got a cast of good characters all from different backgrounds. There is evil afoot and a clear mission. I can totally see why someone might enjoy this book, it just didn't hook me in.

Will I recommend this one to people? ...maybe if someone is looking for something gritty.
I will give the Netflix show a try though and see if that format works for me better.

Really had high expectations of this one and it definitely didn't disappoint. Really enjoyed this and the illustrations were beautifully done. The story overall was amazing and can't wait to pick back up the Netflix tv series now that I completed this. definitely a 5 star review. Really hit home for my fantasy interest.

To me, Cursed is one of those easy books you read when you want to waste your time waiting for the newest book in a series to come out or if your just in a general reading slump.

It kept me captivated and wanting to find out what if going to happen with Nimue and the other characters, but the book still left me frustrated with certain things.

1) the characters are kind of just there? I feel like I barely know anything about the characters, which is especially disappointing when it comes to the main characters. Almost nobodies background gets explored, which left me uninterested in most.

2) What was the point of the romance between Nimue and Arthur. The romance also felt like it came out of nowhere. Nimue sees Arthur for the first time and recognizes he's cute (and he kind of acknowledges her back), but then when they “team up” Nimue, understandably, shows not much interest. But suddenly Morgan comes out of nowhere saying that the two “make a great pair” or something along the lines and boom, we are made aware of Nimue's interest in Arthur again, totally out of the blue. Few chapters later the two kiss and their relationship barely gets explored after. The romance feels useless and unnecessary. If you're going to have characters get involved, do it so it feel genuine and not just shoehorned in to check of some list.

Overall, I just can't say much of the book. The ending did leave me curious, but I most definitely wouldn't recommend this to a friend or family member. Maybe watch the Netflix show? It might be better?

Not really a fan of Frank Miller's art in this one. It didn't seem to fit here. Also didn't love the writing of this overall. Pretty meh.

So unlike several of the other reviews I glanced at, I actually was excited about it being a story about Nimue. That is in the sense that I did not want an “imagine if Arthur was a girl!” story, because simply, he wasn't. I'm all for a female lead-reimagining I just don't think making it a woman-Arthur is what I'd be looking for.

Throughout reading this I thought it was great for the most part throughout the first 300+ pages, even stating that it was a 4 or 5* book depending on the ending.
Where it lost me is that it is an incredibly long YA book for its style, however they did not specify that it was the beginning of a series? A new saga? I still don't think there's word on another book?
So that means it was always meant to land on some kind of cliffhanger, and I am not opposed to series whatsoever, but if they had lead with that information it could prepare readers for it in terms of expectations. Therefore, for me, a 403 page book that has very little resolution or payoff, is kind of just ridiculous. It missed all the marks for me because of it...

Also at several points in the book I was surprised by how the artwork imagined a somewhat womanly figure for this 14 year old? In a bad way... kind of creepy.

Otherwise the surprise appearances from well known knights of the round table was handled very well and I enjoyed them all.