Similar to Julie's other ya, The Charmed List, this had magic in modern day. I think the magical part was an interesting touch that made this a little different from typical ya romance along with the setting taking place in Japan. It's a cute friends to lovers romance between high school seniors Remy and Cam, but nothing too memorable! I felt like the pacing was a little bit slower which makes it a little harder to get into, along with the fact that although dual pov it's told through third person. It's a cute and easy holiday read to get you in the mood, but nothing that will really shake your world.

I went into this book completely blind so here's one thing I wish I'd known in advance... This is a sequel to The Charmed List, which is kind of weird since they're pairs of siblings dating each other. It's still full of magic and whimsy, but there's a sense of angst that you'll miss if you haven't read The Charmed List.

But apart from that, we're back in the magical world of Julie Abe and I love it. Exploring Tokyo and Tokyo Magical University was AWESOME and really made me want to travel there. (To Tokyo, not to the fictional university but like.... if it secretly exists? Yes please! Remy and Cam are adorable together, even though we barely get to SEE them together because the universe hates them... There's so much going on and I'd love to see a less chaotic book set at TMU in the future. Maybe Naomi and Taka, eh??

*Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

Remy and Cam are childhood friends that take a trip to Japan and both drink a magical love potion. Unfortunately, the potion had the wrong effects and now there is a race against time for Cam to get his memories of Remy back or have them lost forever.

This is a dual prospective narration, and I will be honest in saying that the writing style was confusing at times. It was hard to understand the context of the sentence and felt choppy. Not to mention there were sooooo many pop culture references. I am not going to take the time to google some pop star just to get an image for comparison (that makes me sound and feel old). I understand that these are teenagers doing dumb teenage things so I won’t hark on that. There are good moments of writing as well, where the descriptive imagery makes me feel as if I am in Tokyo.

It was really cute to watch the main characters be in love and fall in love. Navigating how we truly feel can be a difficult task and I enjoyed how Julie Abe crafted her story. I am also hoping that we get more books in this universe because I feel as if the set up is there and is just waiting for the story to be written (looking at Taka).
I had a great time following these two kids on their adventure and meeting other characters as well. There is quite an ensemble in Our Cursed Love. The hint of magic imbued in the story added to the whimsical feel of it all. It wasn’t too intense of a fantasy element and pretty easy to understand.

Our Cursed Love is a great novel for those who don’t usually read fantasy, I feel as if they will fall in love with the story itself. This is a fun youthful read that will be perfect for Christmas, I cannot wait for it to be released.

This was cute.

Remy and Cam have been best friends since they were born. They are spending their last high school Christmas in Tokyo. Their siblings live there and Remy is applying to the Tokyo Magical College there. They both saved up everything they could and want to have a memorable week. So many things are planned out. Both Remy and Cam are in love with each other. Remy is determined to tell Cam on this trip, but she keeps putting it off. She's afraid that she'll ruin their friendship and that's more important to her than anything. Remy has her tea leaves read and they tell her that she doesn't have a soulmate. Even though love potions are outlawed, Remy and Cam decide to take an offered soulmate potion. That way they will always have each other, even if it's not a romantic soulmate. Both hope it will be though. Things go wrong and Cam forgets who Remy is. He has no memories of her. And over time, Remy starts forgetting things from her past with Cam. A friend does a test and finds out that if they don't make a working antidote by New Year's, they will forget each other forever. Remy tries all week to get Cam to remember and to also maybe fall in love with her before they are forever cursed.

I gave this book 4 stars.

Thank you to the publisher for my Netgalley link.

I should've known this book wasn't for me because I don't typically love the friends-to-lovers and amnesia tropes, which is the core of this book. Either of these can work for me; it just has to be somewhat executed. However, I just found the majority of the book to be boring.

I also remember from the first book that I didn't love-love the writing, but I was able to get over it then with the characters and plot. Here, I think since I wasn't interested in either, the writing just exacerbated my disinterest.

I did like the exploration of soulmates and what it means to have a choice, but while this was the main theme, it wasn't really a big portion of the book. My opinions, yours may differ, etc.

I'm in love with Eva Evergreen and Tessa so I wanted to try the author's romance novels after hearing so many good things about The Charmed List.
I'm usually not a romance reader but I like romance anime, manga, and shows and this felt like a cozy manga to me which I love. My favorite thing is that there is still magic in this novel because magic is mixed in the real world but only magical people can see it. The second thing I love is novels set in Japan.
Remy and Cam are best friends and they love each other but they don't confess their love. Then Remy learns she doesn't have a soulmate and they both take matters into their hands in a race against time. It's very sweet.
Being told in the present tense, third person and both Remy and Cam's point of view slowed down the reading for me but I enjoyed it overall. If you loved The Charmed List you'll love recognizing the characters in this book.
Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this eARC.

i really liked this! i’d read julie abe’s middle grades and absolutely loved them before so i was excited to read one of her yas. our cursed love is set in a world where magic exists, and follows remy and cam, childhood best friends who are both in love with each other but cannot bring themselves to confess their feelings. they take a trip to japan together, where remy promises to herself that she’ll tell cam how she feels about him before the week, their trip to japan, and the year are over. after a tea reading from a fortune teller who has never been wrong tells her that she doesn’t have a soulmate, remy is devastated. in hopes of proving her fate wrong, she and cam take an ancient soulmate elixir, after which cam forgets all memories of his childhood best friend remy. to bring his memories back, the two have to recreate enough before midnight of the new year, which is in six days.

i loved remy and cam, as well as the side characters! i loved remy and cam’s friendship and how they cared so deeply for each other. i liked jack and ellie, i didn’t know the author’s previous ya, ‘the charmed list’ was about the two of them but i’m excited to read it after seeing them together in this one. i absolutely loved both taka and naomi and hope we also get books about them!

this was such a quick read. i really enjoyed all my time reading it and never felt bored. i feel like this is one of those books i would’ve enjoyed more in the audiobook format though! the writing style felt a bit weird ? i don’t know what was wrong with it but i often felt like i had to reread parts because my brain just wasn’t processing the words. maybe it would’ve been better in first person? i also felt like there were a few small(-ish) illogical things where i just didn’t understand why or how they happened. i couldn’t really overlook those and they kept bugging me while reading.

i loved the magical aspect of things and would absolutely love to learn more about the world! and i especially loved the tokyo setting, and getting to explore so many places along with remy and cam! i liked that they discovered the importance of shared memories and taking matters into your own hands together.

overall i really liked this! i feel like i could’ve read the rest of cam and remy’s lives and not get bored at all? i kinda had low expectations going into this so maybe that helped me enjoy it more than i would’ve normally! i’m now excited to read ‘the charmed list’ as well! i feel like this is the perfect winter read for people looking for a cute childhood friends to lovers romance set in a magical world.

thank you to the publisher wednesday books and netgalley for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

This book is equivalent to drinking a warm cup of tea in front of the fire with a cat cuddled on your lap. It's so cozy and cute. I love the magic system and the sweet friends-to-lovers dynamic between Remy and Cam.

I tend to usually lean against friends to lovers but this was such a cute and easy read.

The magi, the setting, and the romance were just so perfectly done together. It was slow burn and you were on the edge of seat just waiting for them to confess their feelings for one another.

Definitely would recommend for a cute and easy childhood friends to lovers story!

Thanks to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for an ARC in exchange of an honest review!

this was a really cute book!

thank you to the author, netgalley, and the publisher for this advanced copy to review!

Our Cursed Love was an interesting and unique story. It was slow at times but I did enjoy it. Remy is n love with her best friend Cam, and she's convinced they are soulmates. Cam and Remy have been friends their whole life and have been pulling magical pranks since as long as she can remember. They are both about to go off to college but before they do they take a magical trip to Japan. Remy is determined to tell Cam about her feelings but before she does she has a magical tea reading that flips everything upside down when she finds out she doesn't have a soulmate. After they end up taking a love potion that Remy thinks will fix all her problems with cam. Of course nothing goes to plan and they start to lose their memories. I enjoyed this story but I just think it was kinda basic, I wanted to know more about the magical family and the magic world but that was just lightly touched upon.

It is a story that flows off the page & you could imagine it as a Jdrama to obsess over utterly!

'Koi no Yokan' basically means the feeling of seeing someone & knowing you'll fall in love with them someday.
Our Cursed Love somehow used this twice; we watched our two main characters be in love with each other AND fall in love at the same time, all because of a magical disappearance of memories.

This book's beautiful display of longing and loss was such a sweet and sometimes bitter thing. Romance is the main drive of this book. Still, the friendship between the two held its weight and importance because even at the threat of the romance not being mutual, the need for their friendship to thrive was so endearing - we knew it would always be okay (ignoring the curse); those idiots were just loveblind!

The magical world is so intertwined and effortlessly subtle, a tremendous change from books, where they are very intense and intimidating. This lets us feel the cosiness and sweetness of the book. This is a perfect Ya contemporary romance, and I cannot wait to own it! Great winter vibes!
PLUS LOVED THE BOOK SHOUTOUT WE SAW: Made in Korea & The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea!

P.S. I will say this: TAKA better get his book because you can't just break my heart like that, even if I wanted it!

Tropes this book has:
Friends to lovers
Magically hidden world
Japan setting
Magical curse

Honestly I didn’t like this book much, but that is just what I think. I didn’t like the characters at all.

Thanks, St Martin’s and Wednesday Books for the eArc.

I was so excited for Our Cursed Love, a YA fantasy romance with a ton of representation and a really intriguing plot. Right out of the gate, I knew I was going to struggle with this one, from the 3rd person POV to the present tense.

I definitely thought this has potential - I was eager to read the plot and may give it another try on a day when I’m ready for something like this, but I was so thrown off by the writing style that I just couldn’t immerse myself enough.

To be completely honest, I don’t think a lot of readers are going to enjoy this book.

Our Cursed Love starts with Remy, our female main character, telling herself that this is the week she will tell her crush, Cam, that she has feelings for him. She’s promised herself to confess sometime that year, and with only a week until the year ends, she’s sure it will happen sometime this week.

Maybe.

One of the immediate frustrations I had with this book is how very obvious it is to readers that both Remy and Cam have feelings for each other, yet neither one wants to voice those feelings. There also isn’t a real reason as to why neither one wants to confess until closer to the end of the book (and only on one side), leaving readers to feel as though all of this miscommunication and agonizing over their feelings for each other has no real meaning to it.

Our Cursed Love focuses on Cam losing his memories of Remy and the two fighting to fix this before the week is over, but I was very surprised by how much of the book I had to read until I finally got to this section. While 30% of a book isn’t too far into the story, a majority of books have their setups all finished and jump into the meat of the story by 25%. The pacing of Our Cursed Love just felt weirdly slow, and nothing seemed to matter in the beginning section.

I was also very weirded out by the use of Japanese throughout this book. At times, the Japanese terms and phrases seemed very gratuitous to me (such as the aunt calling Ellie and Jack simply by “Ellie” and “Jack”, but Remy and Cam had to inexplicably be “Remy-chan” and “Cam-kun”, all within the same scene). Despite this book taking place in Japan, it also didn’t feel rooted in any certain location. This book could have taken place anywhere and nothing would have changed.

To go alongside that, this book felt much more like a fantasy book than Julie Abe’s previous work, The Charmed List, which takes place in the same universe (and features Ellie and Jack as main characters). One of my favorite aspects of The Charmed List was how magic was integrated into society while also being hidden away from those who are unaware of magic. In Our Cursed Love, however, the magical world and the normal world felt like two separate places, to the point that nothing in this book felt like it could take place in our world.

I think the biggest reason readers will dislike this book, however, is the culmination of the soulmate plot. Without spoilers, there is a choice the author took in Remy’s soulmate that has me, and I assume a lot of readers who enjoy the idea of soulmates, questioning their beliefs. Are soulmates truly meant for each other, no matter what? Or is there some degree of choice in the decision?

This is a cute Christmas love story. Nothing special, but fun and it keeps you engaged. The characters are likable, if a bit flat at times. The teenagers definitely feel like teenagers, they wouldn't have gotten themselves into this situation if they were more mature. There was a side plot that seemed to come out of nowhere that I didn't enjoy but it didn't get much attention and didn't detract from my overall enjoyment.
Overall, it's a solid read.

On a trip to Tokyo, where Remy has an interview with an exclusive magical university, she decides to tell her best friend Cam that she loves him. After a tea reading gives Remy an unexpected fortune, she and Cam share a magical elixir, causing Cam to lose his memories of Remy. She finds herself on a deadline to prove to Cam that she’s unforgettable, while trying to secure her spot in her dream college.

The Tokyo setting is super fun as is the magical world building. I also really liked the two new characters, Taka and Naomi, and would love to see them get their happily ever afters in future books.

I really enjoyed Abe’s previous romance, THE CHARMED LIST, which featured Remy’s sister and Cam’s brother, however, OUR CURSED LOVE fell a bit short for me. Part of my problem with connecting with this book is that Remy and Cam’s close friendship came across as rock solid in THE CHARMED LIST, making the things keeping them apart feel insignificant, and at times, out of character such as at the all-is-lost moment. The resolution felt a bit rushed as Cam’s epiphany occurs off stage, and instead of the resolution feeling magical, it comes across as contrived. The tone of the book and minimal amount of physical intimacy made the characters seem younger than high school seniors.

I liked how Cam’s brother and Remy’s sister supported their younger siblings and how their healthy relationship with each other was demonstrated. While the epilogue did a nice job of showing Remy and Cam a year later, it seemed more focused on tying up some loose plot ends than cementing their relationship.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group, for providing an Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley.

Thank you, NetGalley, for this ARC.

Set in modern day Japan, where magic exists, Remy is hopelessly in love with her best friend Cam. On their first night in Japan, Remy asks a tea-leaf reader (whose readings have never been wrong before) if she has a soulmate. The reader tells her that she has no soulmate. This causes her to seek out help from someone else who gives her and Cam a banned love potion. After they take the love potion, Cam ends up losing his memories of Remy and she has six days to get him to remember her and fall in love with her before she loses him forever.

I enjoyed this book. I read it on a 17 hour drive home from vacation and it kept me entertained throughout the trip. However, I don't love how it ended. Maybe I like the idea of destiny and fate so much that when I realized she was taking her fate and throwing it out the window I lost some interest. I also really loved Taka from the very beginning so I wish he had a better outcome. I would be interested in reading a spin off where he gets to find love. All of the supporting characters were fun and I loved getting to learn about Cam and his relationships with his father and brother. I wish I had more of a connection with Remy and her relationships with her family and other friends but any time the point of view came from Remy she only focused on Cam. I also wish the magical elements had been explored and built up a bit more instead of just "magic exists but not everyone is aware". I would've liked to see more of it and have that magical world built up a bit more.

Overall, this was a cute and quick story.

3.5/5
I received an e-arc through NetGalley and this is my honest opinion of the book.
Cute story pretty cliche. Lot is pop culture references. I wasn't a fan of the twist it's one of the plot twists I hate the most on books. It's cute dialogue and probably really good for a younger teenager with coming to age plot and figuring out relationships. I was not the target audience. Overall cute. Would give it higher if it didn't have the plot twist I hate the most.

dklfjaskljfslfkd ok Julie Abe is one of my favorite authors!!! Our Cursed Love was so relatable because of the college application process the two main characters were going through and made me want to go back to high school. Because of the ongoing pandemic, I did not have part of high school in person. I also LOVEEE how the magic is incorporated in this world and I'm glad Julie Abe also included cameos from characters she's written about before.