Cursed by Marissa Meyer Book Review

I’ve been on a big hiatus from book reviewing, and I hope to finally really get back into it. I’ve missed it. And let’s start with this review!

I’m sad to say I was looking forward to the sequel and conclusion to the Gilded duology, from one of my favourite authors, and it really disappointed me. It took me over a month to get through this book, in spite of the fact I really wanted to know how it would end. None of Marissa Meyer’s previous books were even close to making me feel that way.

Miller’s daughter Serilda has been through the ringer solely because she one night hid two moss maidens in her onion cellar, deciding the right thing to do would be to save them from the hunters passing through. Then the ruler of the land, the Erkoling, asked Serilda what she was doing out so late, and she heard herself saying she can fabricate straw into gold, but only during the full moon, which is when it was happening. The Erkoling decided to take her up on that, and when in prison, she met a strange boy, half human half ghost, who roamed the walls of the Adalheid castle and only knew himself as Gild. He had magic that could turn the straw into gold, but Serilda has to, by magic rules, offer something in return. Something of equal value to the gold.

The last book had Serilda give away all her prized goods to Gild for this whenever the Erkoling came back during a harvest moon, and one return she has to give eventually to Gild includes a child of hers she ends up pregnant with, between her and Gild but the Erkoling believes it’s between her and him. Plus, this straw she’s spun for him has the power to hold and capture gods. Now Serilda is trapped in the castle, removed from her physical body but not yet technically a ghost (long story), and she is to be forcefully married to the king, and when she has her child, she’s to be killed. But not if she and Gild find some way to thwart the Erkoling’s never-thwarted-before power and magic.

I rated the last book in this series three stars out of five and found that even though it was her least entertaining book so far, it told its sophisticated story the best way it could’ve. But this Part Two emphasized how this whole series is quite slow, cluttered and claustrophobic, so unlike her other books that balanced tension, drama, action, romance, fear and adventure. I think the main reason I give a passing grade to Gilded but a very harsh grade to Cursed is there is too much and too little going on at the same time, and so much of it boils down to Serilda being at the mercy of the Erkoling for this entire book. We get a bunch of additional stories and mysteries, but too much of them felt unnecessary to pay attention to.

This is basically a prison drama book with one person at a corrupt warden’s mercy, and there’s nothing wrong with that particular plot-line, but so much of the fine detail wasn’t interesting when faced with an antagonist I will admit is very effective. From the beginning, the best part of this series has been the Erkoling. What kept me going in this series was wanting to see how this seemingly immortal, invincible and sadistic prince could ever be taken down, and what he’s going to do with the weaponry he has. Because of this, a lot of the world building feels too much like a distraction at this point. I didn’t want to learn more folklore or communities, I wanted to read about Serilda and Gild rebelling. And maybe I was a little extra annoyed that Gilded ended on a cliffhanger of a note where I expected them to get more down and dirty, and I didn’t really get that. Instead, simply put, it was a slog.

I did enjoy the big climax and I think I teared up a little bit at the ending. There are some scenes I really appreciated, such as a maiden to the Erkoling helping Serilda and Gild out, Serilda being able to see someone she thought she lost forever, and a revelation about one of the gods. But Cursed took me out of it very early on by continuing its slow pace but this time with a more disappointing storyline, and I wasn’t able to feel the magic and thrills Meyer’s other works brought me. Such a shame…

My grade: 1/5