Review: Cursed by Marissa Meyer

Hello and welcome to my first book review of 2023! In fact, this review is long overdue since it’s of a book I finished back in December 2022. Anyway, it’s a review of one of my autobuy Authors Marissa Meyer, so better late than never is the motto. Just a little warning beforehand: since Cursed is the second and final book in the Gilded duology, there are Gilded spoilers in this post. Haven’t you read said book yet? Then scroll to the bottom where I highlight the important points of my review.

Title: Cursed
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: Gilded #2
Publish date: November 8, 2022
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Number of pages: 485
ISBN: 9780571371600
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

New York Times-bestselling author Marissa Meyer concludes her young adult retelling of Rumpelstiltskin in this breathtaking sequel!

‘The reigning queen of the genre.’ – New York Times
‘Intricate worldbuilding and star-crossed romance.’ – Publishers Weekly

It isn’t true, she wanted to whisper. To lean forward and nuzzle her cheek against his temple. To press him against the wall and mold her body to his. I am not his. I will never be his.

Serilda and Gild cannot break the curses that tether their spirits to Adalheid’s haunted castle. There they remain trapped for eternity. On the night of the Endless Moon, the Erlking means to capture one of the seven gods and so be reunited with his lover, Perchta, who has been banished to the underworld.

But it soon becomes clear that the Erlking’s hunger for vengeance won’t be satisfied with a single wish, and his true intentions have the power to alter the mortal realm forever.

Serilda and Gild have no choice but to thwart his plans, all the while solving the mystery of Gild’s forgotten name, and freeing all the ghosts kept in servitude to the dark ones. As the evil forces gather, it seems only their love is strong enough to sustain them . . . 

I hate to say this, but Gilded probably is my least favorite series by this author. I fell in love with The Lunar Chronicles when I first picked them up back in 2017. These turned into my comfort books and actually in one of my all time favorite series. I also really enjoyed the “Renegades” series, but couldn’t get into Heartless. The “Gilded” series is one I had trouble with as well. I first picked up Gilded back in 2021, but I had to reread it this past summer because I just didn’t feel it at the time. The ending intrigued me enough that I wanted to pick up Cursed once it had been rleased. However, I knew I couldn’t fully fall in love with this book and that’s exactly what happened.

Cursed picked up right after the ending of Gilded. Serilda and Gild are cursed and therefore trapped in the castle as ghosts. Serilda is pregnant with her first child and she has to hide from the king that it’s not his child. Trapped as ghosts, both Serilda and Gild are on a hunt to find their mortal bodies and to finally break the curse that has been upon this castle for centuries.

First, let me tell you that Meyer’s writing is lovely again. It’s dark and whymsical. I’ve listened to Cursed as an audiobook and Rebecca Soler again did a fantastic job on the narration. However, I just didn’t connect to the characters and the plot of this book. The atmosphere felt dark and tense, just like what’s to be expected from retellings like these.

I wasn’t a fan of the characters in Gilded already, but they didn’t get better in Cursed. I find both Gild and Serilda really boring and lacking personality. They barely develop themselves, although they find out some stuff about their life and heritage. They just don’t make nice main characters, they lack too much for me. So does the plot. The plot is way and way too long for this retelling. I had the same issue with Gilded, but this sequel isn’t any better to me. It’s somewhat predictable and repetitive. In my opinion, Gilded just should have been a stand alone. The book didn’t intrigue me as much and I found it pretty slow. I sometimes had a hard time getting through this story. The ending was something I quite expected to happen, which is a satisfying conclusion of this series.

In short

Things I liked:

• The writing was lovely;
• The atmosphere was really dark and therefore pretty tense;
• The satisfying finale (although it being a little predictable);
• The audiobook narrationb by Rebecca Soler.

Things I didn’t like:

• The length of the book regarding the pace of the story;
• The main characters lacking personality and being pretty boring;
• The story being quite predictable;
• In the end the story was dragging;
• The book didn’t really intrigue me.