What a fantastic gender-bent retelling of BATB! Tevin reminded me of Flynn Rider, with his thieving and sarcasm, and Merit reminded me so much of Belle. I really enjoyed the magic and fantasy in this, and any fan of retellings will love this.

Thank you to Penguin Teen and Netgalley for an e-arc of this book!
Content Warnings at end of review.

Merit has a problem--she's cursed. And she will remain in this beastly form forever if she can't get married to either a person of her mother's choosing, or someone who truly loves her...by her next birthday. Tevin has a completely different problem--his greedy parents traded him into Merit's services. So they make a deal--Tevin helps Merit find a husband, and his parents' debts will be paid. Simple enough.

I absolutely loved this retelling of Beauty and the Beast! Honestly--I love all of the characters so much. Merit, Tevin, Val...everyone. They are so fun and individual and I want to know more about every one of them. I loved the romantic development between the two main characters. I felt like it was very realistic and natural! I really loved how everything turned out and thought it was a great book!

Pub Date: July 20, 2021

Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse
Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Body horror, Violence, and Alcoholism
Minor: Drug use and Medical content

Thank you to Penguin Teen & Netgalley for an eARC of this in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Best case of surprise gays.

Curses is a Beauty & the Beast retelling but where our female protagonist, Merit Craven, is cursed to be a beast for defying her mother's wishes. Unless she finds love or marries a man of her mothers choosing before her 18th birthday, she'll be a beast forever. Enter, Tevin Dumont, his mother has forced him to be Merit's helper in exchange for her freedom because she stolen something from the Cravens. Tevin must help Merit find a husband and avoid the scandal that ending in her original curse. For not only is Tevin mandated to help her, but Tevin has organized several of the cons that Merit fell pray to.

The main plot line is all about Merit finding a husband: the main action is Tevin escorting Merit to various events and advising her. Basically all of Merit's choices are terrible but she must find the least evil of them all. Merit's mother was a hard character to like. While on one hand she wants the best for Merit, she also goes about it the wrong way many times. There are several instances where Merit is pushed to the edge of her ability and the curse punishes her. The relationship between these two was complicated, but I did like when both of them tried to be better about communicating.

This book is such a slow burn. In between Merit going to parties and events, we see her start to truly befriend Tevin, his brother Amaury and his cousin Val. I loved seeing them all become closer to Merit and her healer Ellery, and her guard Kaiya. I think one of my favorite things was seeing Val pine over Kaiya. Plus Ellery's utter disdain and never being impressed by Tevin or his family. I loved them so much and having a nonbinary character was such a delightful surprise! Then there was Tevin and Merit, I didn't think I'd fall so in love with their relationship but I absolutely did. It was just too cute and their banter was the best.

The world of Curses was so complex. There are many types of magical creatures including fae and fae descendants. The world also has several kingdoms and we see many of them represented. I do wish we'd gotten to learn more about the various worlds and their customs, but as most of the narrative is focused on Merit, we mostly just see her culture. Overall, this story pleasantly surprised me and I very much enjoyed it!

Rep: Nonbinary side character, lesbian side character, possible sapphic side character--not confirmed.

CWs: Violence, alcohol consumption, drugging of side character without their knowledge, body horror--kinda, animal death, confinement in cage, death of a parent, emotional abuse, medical content--exams by healer, panic attack.

If there is one thing to know about me, it is that I am a sucker for fairytale retellings. So when I heard about Lish McBride's Curses, a genderbent retelling of Beauty and the Beast, I had to get my hands on it. Especially with Marissa Meyer, a favorite author of mine, raving about this book.

By now, we all know the story of Beauty and the Beast. There has been many retellings of it through literature and cinema, but I think this is my favorite rendition of it yet. McBride's Curses was straightforward and true to the source material, but still offered big doses of fun with its quirky and oftentimes outrageous characters. If I were to describe Curses in one word, I would say that it is campy. If you love Shrek and its interpretation of our classic fairytales, you'll love this book.

As someone who is obsessed with worldbuilding to a fault, I do wish that McBride delved more into the world and it fae in this book. The story lulled for me towards, but overall such a fun read filled with great laughs.
Thank you Penguin Teen for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As far as a Beauty and the Beast retelling goes, this one was pretty fun.

Merit is cursed due to her refusal to marry a man her mother chose for her. She now has until her 18th birthday to marry a man of her mother’s choosing or find love if she does not want to remain a beast forever. But the last guy she thought she loved left when her mother offered him money.

Tevin comes from a family of con artists and has a fairy blessing of being charming. He is usually used to woo a young girl and get paid by her family to leave, because he is an unsuitable match. He goes along with the cons to try to protect his younger siblings from their selfish parents. His mother is caught trying to steal a valuable flower from Merit’s estate and trades her son for her freedom. Tevin agrees to stay and help Merit avoid another con, admitting he knows the signs since it’s a con he also runs.

The characters are a lovable and varied cast. Tevin’s cousin Val is a sharpshooter with an eye for the ladies. She falls for Merit’s guard and has to realize Kaiya is someone she’ll have to work to earn. Ellery is Merit’s non-binary healer who keeps everyone in line most of the time. Amaury is Tevin’s quiet brother who is really good at uncovering the skeleton’s in people’s closets and is also blessed with the ability of forgery. This is not even to mention Merit’s suitors who are a silly group of wealthy boys that at least provide a wealth of entertainment if not much of substance.

I did kind of wish there had been a little more world building to help explain Latimer’s motivations and background. It was also a bit hard to understand there are different races without really any backgrounds or differences explained. The spriggan race seemed the most thought out with their nonbinary leanings and sensitivity to magic.

Outside of that, I thought this book was a fun read. Thanks to Net Galley and G. P. Putnam’s Sons for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was all in for a gender swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast. This was a really well done, and hilariously wild at times, novel. The most I can say is that the characters are all distinct and not underdeveloped. Merit and Tevin work well together and even the secondary characters made me root for them. I wanted everyone to end up well and while this was a retelling, McBride does not forget to add details nodding to the origins of these curse stories, which I appreciated.

A wonderful book and a fun different version of a beloved fairytale.

What a fun gender-bent retelling of Beauty and the Beast!

The initial pacing of the story is a bit slow, learning each character (there's quite a few), and their roles was a bit challenging for me. Once your get passed all that, the story flows nicely and the pacing is much more enjoyable. The writing was hilarious at times, but I had trouble grasping the world as a whole.

A definite quirky, quick read! The plot is predictable, but I do recommend giving this one a read if you're looking for something light-hearted and fun.


Thank you G.P. Putnam's Sons Books via NetGalley for the e-ARC to read and honestly review!

3.5*

Curses is a gender flipped take on the classic beauty and the beast tale. Merit is essentially being forced to marry a MUCH older man that she has no interest in for the sake of her family and name. Instead of bowing to the wishes of her mother she refuses to even meet the man she’s betrothed to, and so a Godling (fairy) curses her to become a beast forever if she does not marry by her 18th birthday, but IF she finds actual love on her own before then she is allowed to marry him. That said she becomes more and more beastly in the meantime making it difficult to find a true love of her own. Yes, she has the ability to look normal at set times, but finding actual true love is difficult when you’re a noble born.

Enter Florencia DuMont. A thief and a con and probably not the best mom tries to steal flowers from Merit’s family for her own gain, and ends up trading her oldest son, our “beauty,” Tevin for her freedom. But Tevin brings more to the table than just a potential love interest for our “beast.” He’s there to help her find true love prior to turning 18, AND he also brings along a sort of found family into play in Merit’s life.

I don’t want to say TOO TOO much, but I want to say that I enjoyed the overall theme of a young woman/person being pushed to make choices that they don’t want to. I love that Merit was willing to sacrifice unknown consequence to be able to find her own happiness. I think that’s relatable for many young people. I also appreciate that the love story felt organic and wasn’t too quick in my personal opinion. While I did assume this would be a darker, gothic read, I ended up enjoying the overall quirkiness of the story.

All in all I think this is a great spin on the “tale as old as time,” and has an impactful underlying meaning that will be relatable to the readers it’s meant for!

Rating: 2.75/5 stars

TW: Parental abuse, blood, use of alcohol and drugs

I received this ARC from Penguin Teen and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Any and all thoughts are my own.

I always loved Beauty and the Beast as a kid. To this day it's still one of my favorite Disney movies and musicals. My love for it led me to request this book, and my mixed review on retellings still stands.

Merit is a nobleborn, forced to marry at a young age. When she chooses to deny her mother's request to marry her off, Merit is cursed to be a beast until her 18th birthday. She has to find a suitor her mother chooses or someone who loves her truly, or else she will remain a beast forever. Enter Tevin, a con-man who finds himself having to help Merit find the right suitor to marry. Will feelings come in the way, and will Merit remain a beast forever?

I'll start this review by talking about the world-building. It's an interesting mix between fantasy and steampunk, with magical and technological elements involved. I don't know if it was the best suited for this story in particular. One aspect I did like was that of the Godlings and who exactly they curse versus who they gift. It's a unique twist on the story of the enchantress which I particularly liked.

In terms of plot, I really felt like Curses fell short in a few departments. First, Merit a majority of the time felt like a damsel in distress. I was really hoping in a few scenarios that she would be able to at least save herself or be able to handle stuff on her own; instead, most of the time she had to be saved or something akin to it. It made her unlikable as a character. As a result, I felt like there were several opportunities for McBride to make her seem less helpless, like breaking through the beast's spell for just a moment to save herself. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.

In fact, there were several things that were mentioned or discussed within the story that felt like foreshadowing but were never explored or used further in the story. One of the best examples of this was probably Tevin teaching Merit how to determine if someone was lying. I really thought that would come in handy, but NOPE! Not using those methods felt like a missed opportunity for character growth for Merit. As a result, the plot of the book wasn't really predictable per se, but I wish it would have been developed more thoroughly.

There were also several scenes that I felt were dragged out or completely unnecessary, such as a few POVs that could have easily been fixed by dropping hints to help the reader draw a conclusion. It made the story feel kind of jumpy and not cohesive. There were also some issues with jumping POV perspectives in the middle of a chapter that was sloppy. Because of this, a story that was less than 300 pages really just felt like it wouldn't end.

The characters were okay. Tevin was smart and charming, but that's about it. Oh, he also definitely doesn't see the value in himself at times, which makes us not see the value in him as readers. I liked a few of the side characters, but that's it. There was some good LGBTQ+ rep, including lesbian rep and nonbinary rep.

In short, Curses is a story with a unique flair on the Beauty and the Beast fairytale, but with a lackluster and messy execution.

I love fairy tales, I love when these stories get made into movies (like Disney), mostly I love retellings. New perspectives on favorites. This REVERSED Beauty and the Beast retelling just took me by surprise and I was hooked.

I enjoyed the world building, as this setting was so complex, and I appreciated the descriptive writing, and all the types of creatures within it. The characters, were all key, and fun to read about. The main character Merit who is our ‘Beast’ is a bit stubborn, which is a bit relatable TBH. Our ‘Beauty’ Tevin, is a hard not to love character, based on his initial description in the synopsis. He surprised me, and I loved him!!

Definitely a worth while read, with an unexpected ending. So if you’re a fan of all things fairy tale related, you need this one on your TBR, preorder it today!

*Thank you to Penguin Teen and Netgalley for the advanced copy for my honest review*

This gender bent Beauty and the Beast takes us in a journey with our main character, Merit. A girl who’s mother is set to find her a husband and if she refuses, she will stay a beast. Merit doesn’t want to just be forced into marriage, especially with someone her awful controlling mother picks. So she agrees to meet Tevin, who has agreed to help her find someone and end the curse.

This is a slow journey of a book. I loved the lyrical writing and a lot of side characters and their abilities… there’s a curses support group who are particularly funny! The world is complex and so are some of there characters. It was an interesting story all around.

A charming, captivating gender-swapped Beauty and the Beast retelling. Merit's a headstrong, wealthy heir who gets cursed with turning into a beast when she refuses the betrothal her mother chooses. She must either find true love or marry a man of her mother's choosing before her eighteenth birthday, or risk being a beast forever.

Merit's curse has one reprieve - she can take an elixir made of a certain plant to become a girl again for a few hours. But she can't take it too often, or risk permanent damage.

From the first moment bad-boy con artist Tevin appears on the page, I was hooked. He's a handsome swindler with a heart of gold. When his path crosses with Merit, she partners with him to help her weed out the other con artists, suitors who are just after her money. But as Tevin and Merit dance through balls, challenge each other and rescue magical cats at carnivals, Tevin and Merit both risk losing their hearts. Tevin becomes the only one who can still charm her when she's in beast mode, but handsome, wealthy Prince Eric has both her mother and the Queen's stamp of approval.

This book was a delight from start to finish, and perfect for fans of fairytale retellings.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Teen for the advance review copy of this book.

I went into this book with low expectations — I’m always nervous about any fairytale retelling I pick up, especially when it’s a new take on my favorite. “Curses” far exceeded anything I hoped for.

Taking the best parts of The Beauty and the Beast and then adding nods to several other tales, “Curses” is the fun, witty, romantic read I didn’t know I needed. Set in the turn of the century, magical-realism world of high-born courting, the main characters completely dominate with their sass and banter. Merit is written exactly as a female “Beast” should be — struggling with her own agency, accepting anger as a normal part of being a woman instead of being ashamed for it. But Tevin is, surprisingly, also the best parts of Belle — kind and understanding, sweet and honest. And while their relationship is cute, the point of the book isn’t all about romantic love. Instead, the book focuses on found family and how friendship can be just as powerful — and just as needed — as romance. The side characters aren’t really “side” at all — each is intrinsic to the story, and each adds their own hint of flair that leaves this retelling feeling fresh and new.

Of course, the setting of this book adds so much to the retelling. Instead of a high-fantasy, we get this whirling socialite world of fairyfolk and political scheming, where technology is explained as magic. But this setting also leads me to some of “Curses” downfalls.

Lish McBride created a beautifully nuanced setting that speaks to classism and magical abuse, but never once are these subjects explored deeply except in passing. Many of the main characters are in positions of privilege to do something about these issues — and while albeit Merit’s family does to some extent, it feels more like a bandaid on a deeper problem. Even at the end when the reader gets a nice wrap-up to the story, there is never once any mention of how our characters could help solve these problems, even after they spent parts of the book saying how they wanted to. Of course, this is a YA romance book, but these issues would not have felt so glaringly left on the sidelines if they had not been so intrinsic to the story.

Overall, this is was a cute book that I enjoyed reading. It felt like a mental break, but I think “Curses” could have benefitted from an epilogue, or even 10-20 extra pages to tie up a few loose ends.

While it took a couple of chapters to build this new world and get into the context of this Beauty & the Beast retelling, I am really glad I gave it a go because I ended up enjoying this read. I loved the feminist twist on this and the cast of characters, all with their varied quirks. Val was probably one of my favorite characters — I love that Merit has a powerful entourage, Ellery and Kaiya — I love that Kaiya identifies as gender non-conforming.
One of my favorite scenes was the enchanted forest when the only dude in the party, Tevin, is not to be trusted with weapons because of his inability to use it (LOL).

While I love that this retelling kept the gentleness of the original Beast and Merit is kind to all animals, I think that the marar she rescued takes up way too much of the last one-third of the book. It seems rather convenient to have the rescued character save the day.

While I enjoyed this retelling and probably would prefer this story to the OG, I do wish that this one turned the tables a bit and allowed Merit to keep (and make peace with) some of the beastly attributes. That would have really flipped the script on how we think about beauty and physical attributes.

This is a reversed Beauty and the Beast retelling where Merit will be cursed as a beast forever if she doesn’t find love or marry someone her mother approves of by her birthday.

Tevin steps up to the job to help find someone for her and he made the book for me. He's a con man with the biggest heart. He's sweet and endearing and will con you right out of your money. While his history was questionable, he was the only one who saw Merit for what she was, beast or not. He made her beast problems fun, he made her laugh when she needed a smile and he fell for her hard. I'm not spoiling anything here, it was obvious from the start and I was not sad about it!

I was initially overwhelmed by characters but was able to keep them straight. There are quite a few and most don't play a large enough role. I also feel it was too long. Goodreads says this book is 288 pages. That’s a big fat lie. It’s 450. And while I believe it’s much longer than necessary, I did enjoy it. I just wish the middle parts were wrapped up a little shorter because much seemed unnecessary.

Check out the content for this one on my blog. It was very low making it so almost anyone could enjoy it!

Reverse Beauty and the Beast retelling? Yes Please! I loved the new twist on this classic fairytale. A big difference between this and the classic version is the light and comedic writing, versus the classic dark and twisty. I really enjoyed the banter between Merit and Tevin!

*thank you penguin teen for the eArc*
(3.45)
okay this book was surprisingly really easy to get through. like actually effortless. i found myself rooting for the characters and getting invested (more so in the side characters but whatever)
i do feel like even though i devoured the book a whole lot of nothing happened. like it was so repetitive at times and i had to skim the ending because of how bored i felt myself getting. i do feel as if the ending was alright, but there could’ve been more done.
overall it was a nice read, and i am obsessed with retellings so that helped a lot

This is a gender swapped Beauty and the Beast retelling, where Merit, a young heiress has her heart broken by the boy she thought loved her, and ends up cursed for refusing the arranged marriage her mother promised her into instead. Now, if she doesn't marry A) a suitor of her mother's choosing, or B) a suitor who truly loves her, before her next birthday, she will remain a beast forever. Tevin is the son of a con-artist, who finds herself imprisoned on Merit's land, and trades her freedom for her son's. Thankfully, Tevin has something to offer Merit too. As someone who has grown up around con-artists, he knows what to look for to tell if someone is genuine, and he agrees to help Merit find a suitor who isn't a total creep before her time is up.
Curses is SUCH a fun take on a fairy tale. It kept itself light and humorous, while still having a whole lot of heart. The characters are lovable, and felt unique and fresh, and the storyline takes readers in so many ridiculous and fun directions. I know this might sound silly, and I mean it as the highest compliment I can imagine, but it really reminded me of Shrek. It had so much fun with the whimsy and magic of fairy tales, took plenty of modern liberties, and made me laugh. But it also had me so invested in what was going to happen, because I wanted to see these two beautiful characters push through the unfairness of the world around them and get the happy endings they deserved. I really enjoyed this book, and had a great time reading it.

This book was so much fun! My favorite retellings are based on Beauty and the Beast and when I saw that this was a gender-bent one and the male lead is from a family of con-artists, I didn't hesitate to request this title. I enjoyed following the group of friends as they maneuver the politics of finding the MC's husband to break the curse. They were all unique and multi-dimensional but still work and banter so well with each other. This was also beautifully written especially seen when Tevin charms/flirts (and not just with the MC as he was literally gifted with charm). And I loved the romance, too. Tevin and Merit are both smart, capable and kind. And although there is an element of competition, I appreciated that the guys "competing" are not malicious, greedy and cunning. And none of them were cruel towards Merit in her beast form. So good!

Thanks to PenguinTeen for an eARC. I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

This book feels like a combination of Beauty and the Beast, Ella Enchanted, with the addition of Flynn Ryder and his criminal family. It was a lot, to say the least. Merit is placed under a curse after refusing to marry her mother's choice of suitor. Tavin just wants to save up enough money to escape from his con artist parents with his brother and sister. After Tavin's mother gets caught stealing a medicinal plant from Merit estate, Tavin and Merit come together to break Merit's curse.

The author does not create a good foundation for the magic system in this world. McBride seems to have several types of characters, Fairyborn, humanborn, Fae, and Mage but does not explain the differences between the four. There are also Fairy Godlings, seemingly similar to fairy godmothers, but the author never explains their place in the world she created. Curses and fairygifts were common in the world and led to unintended consequences on the giftee. I was surprised to see that gentry and nobility weren't scared of Merit because of the curse and wanted to help her break it. This felt like one of the more unique aspects of the book. The readers meet several cursed characters in the book. In general, it felt like the author had a lot of ideas but wasn't too concerned about figuring out the details.

I did like Tavin as a character. His relationship with his siblings and cousins was good. I think readers I going to enjoy that aspect of the book. It gives off similar energy as a found family trope. I would have liked to learn more about his backstory and how and when his family got their fairygifts.

The author did add in several LGBTQ characters, so there is some representation, but not a lot. They are side characters who had potential storylines, but they never developed into more than helping Merit break her curse.

Overall, I give the book like 3 stars. The storyline, characters, and writing were fine, but the author did not explain the magic system in the world at all and was just continually adding in characters to further the plot.