Cursed by Jennifer Armentrout

Cursed by Jennifer L. Armentrout

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


3.5 Stars

Jennifer Armentrout is one of my favorite authors...and I have loved the Covenant and Lux series (you are killing me with the Opal ending...killing me!), so I looked forward to reading Cursed. It has been on my TBR list for a while, and I finally got the chance to read it over the last couple of days.

Honestly...it was ok. Not bad, not great...but ok. I really wanted to connect with Ember and Hayden, but it just wasn't there for me. I was ambivalent about both characters. Their voices felt shallow to me, and I did not feel their relationship growing and becoming something more than it was originally. The romance was flat. Bottom line - I had no real emotional investment with any of the characters.

The plot was again...ok. Nothing really new or earth shattering, easily identifiable "bad guy", random extra characters thrown in (but with no further development or purpose). But hey, I can get past a lot when I like a storyteller's voice. This was unfortunately not the case here.

I cant really say much more without giving things away, so...(view spoiler)[

I was bothered by the fact that Ember and her family were 'kidnapped' and brought to live with a 'family' of gifted people who (except for Hayden) did not want her there, and made sure she knew it. Ember was on the right track when she wanted to get the hell out of there, because they are all frightening (read: boyfriend interest is borderline stalker, believes mind-wipe of her best friend is justified, loves her...but ignores her when angry. A 'Sister' who is a psychopath with malicious tendencies - who puts dead animals and death threats in her public school locker. Cromwell - who in the beginning seems to hate her very existence and threatens to send her to "The Facility", in the end (after all his lies are exposed) stakes his claim on Ember and declares her his (ok, creepy!).

Ember herself is rather annoying at times and I wanted to smack her, I was so frustrated. There is only so much self-pity mixed with jealousy that I can tolerate...and she pushed me to my limit. Some hope was redeemed when she actually worked on controlling her gift on her own...but just barely.

We reach the end of the book...even though the mind-wipe issues and her Father knowing Olivia had a gift and wanted to sell her off (prior to his death) was not resolved, "The Facility" is thrown in there once again, and the new 'family' didn't cause the accident (and even helped to find her from her 2nd kidnapper), so she is ...what, happy to be there now? Yeah, it just doesn't make sense to me. (hide spoiler)]

I will definitely continue reading Jennifer Armentrout's work, as I normally really like her storytelling and the voices she gives her characters. This one just wasn't for me.



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