I’m a giant fan of Jennifer Armentrout so when I got this in the mail, I was ecstatic! Sadly, I was disappointed, although I’m pretty sure I’m the only to feel that way. Cursed wasn’t as stunning as Jennifer’s other series, but it was pretty good anyways.Character wise, I didn’t like Ember. Even when proof was thrown in front of her face, she insisted that it was all a) a dream or b) a hallucination/lie. She had this atmosphere of distrust and despair that irked me a lot. Also, I feel like she had a multiple personality disorder. Yeah. Psycho, then emotional, then normal. Rinse and repeat As the book progressed, so did her attitude and thank GOD for that. She would slowly learn to accept that “gifts” were real and she would try to control her powers. Does she succeed? I don’t know…you’ll just have to find out yourself!
Hayden, our love interest…he, well, seemed typical and one of those cliché boyfriends. I’m sorry you Hayden fans! But he was a guy with an extremely powerful gift, frightneningly handsome and charming, and interested (*cough* stalking *cough*) Ember? WHAT!? It just struck a nerve reminding me of this love interest (who shall not be named) who I hated. Completely, utterly hated. Hayden just wasn’t swoon-worthy to me and well, I kind of wanted to strangle him. Although I’m sure Ember would kill me.
Speaking of, the romance. I’m kind of deciding whether it was good or bad. The romance wasn’t insta-love…actually, I’m deciding on that too. Hayden seemed to go insta-lovey from what we read and although Ember didn’t, I found it disturbing that she wasn’t more wary of some guy who had unnatural powers who was basically stalking her. And even when she was a bit wary, it lasted aabout half a day and she forgave him because he was charming and handsome. Uh huh. Yeah. Smart, Ember.
On the other hand, if you ignore all of that, the romance was sweet and…pretty non insta-love?
The plot, I’ll have to admit, did remind me a bit of Shatter Me, but Jennifer Armentrout creates her own plot off the “death touch” route, adding in other prett well-known gifts in. There were a lot of things that were pretty obvious, a few that weren’t, but all in all it was a pretty good tie off. A few horrid things definitely go ont hat actually fit the book pretty well so in plot-wise it was pretty good!
And while I was going to rate this a 2 star book, the way Jennifer Armentrout tells the story brought it up to 3. Armentrout nows how to deftly weave a story and make the words into an enchanting piece that will probably captivate you from start to finish. There’s just something about her writing style that makes you bring your rating a star up! (Honestly, I think I’m pretty much the only person on Earth who pretty much disliked Cursed.)