I typically really enjoy Shea Ernshaw's books, but this one was just not for me. It felt slow, repetitive, juvenile, and without substance. The writing itself was beautiful, and while I marveled a bit at how Ernshaw could describe so poetically Lark's sudden (and baseless) obsession with a boy she'd seen a couple of times and barely exchanged words with, the reality of the fact that Lark was completely and overwhelmingly obsessed with this boy kept making me want to roll my eyes. It didn't' feel like the behavior of a high school student about to graduate--albeit a sheltered and friendless one--it felt like something a 13-year-old would do. About the eighth time I found myself skimming over the (remarkably beautifully written but) boring and honestly repetitive descriptions of how Lark felt about "The Boy," as well as how he looked, how he moved, her reactions to him...etc, I realized I was kind of fed up with her behavior. This, combined with how extremely slow the pacing was, contributed to the fact that I just did not care--which I'll admit made me sad. I think this should have--and could have--been a magical and poetic tale with a soft-focus fable-like quality. But it didn't land with me. I just felt like I was trying to watch something happen through fogged-up glass, and I kept having to blink real hard, squint, and continually rub distracting condensation off the glass to try to focus and make sense of what was happening. There were too many repetitive sequences, too many passages with flowery (I'm sorry to say it) overly dramatic prose, and not enough action, or interaction between characters. Some very tight editing probably would have done this story a world of good. If you like misty stories that feel like they are lost in the fog of folklore, you may really enjoy this story. But I did not. I am still willing to read more from this author, but this book was a miss for me.

I love Shea Ernshaw’s writing and this book was no exception. One of my favorite parts was the nod to one of per previous books (no spoilers so I won’t say which) but it made me want to reread everything Shea has ever written which I think is the best reaction to a reference like that.

If you enjoy this type of atmospheric writing style and are looking for more books of this type, Adrienne Young’s adult novels give you a similar vibe.

The only reason I took off one star was because of the ending. It’s difficult to say why without giving away any spoilers but it was just a feeling I got that the ending felt empty in a way that the rest of the story felt full and rich.

I would definitely recommend this book for fans of Shea’s previous works.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

There was something so magical and fun about this book that made me want to keep reading, I think some of the male characters could use another editing go around to round out their characters because Lark's voice was so strong.

Excellently developed characters and an interesting premise for a story. It was well written, but I found some choices abrupt and frustrating. I would recommend it, but not necessarily wholeheartedly.

Great story but only one issue with it. The names were slightly ridiculous and it took away from my enjoyment of the book. Oak? Yikes. At least Lark was semi-reasonable. Apart from that, it was a great story that left me wanting more. The plot was interesting and felt fresh. I wonder what happens next. A sequel, perhaps? I’d love to read it if the names aren’t too silly.

Thanks to Simon Teen for the gifted copy!

"Love has always been a lie for us."

About the book: The Goode family has been cursed for generations by their tulip field -- snow white & red flowers that make everyone in their small town of Cutwater fall in love with them when they bloom in a period of madness. 17-year-old Lark Goode just wants to escape her family name and have a chance at freedom and real love.

My review: I always love Shea's books - her writing is so lyrical and beautiful that it just sucks me right in. THE BEAUTIFUL MADDENING is exactly what I would expect from Shea - magic with a sense of tragedy, yearning of young love, and earthy, atmospheric vibes. Lark Goode is no witch -- she's just cursed by the tulips, and struggling to leave her small town when she meets a boy who might make her want to stay. Walking alongside Lark as she wonders if she can trust her heart or if she needs to put up walls due to the tulip madness was a lovely journey descending into the madness, too.

"Perhaps this is just what love is: a thing meant for fools. For anyone brave enough to slip into its madness."

There’s something about Shea Ernshaw’s writing that completely pulls me in, her characters, her atmosphere, her storytelling style feel so unique to me that I went into this book with expectations. The author mentioned that this one is different from her others, much softer, and that’s exactly what The Beautiful Maddening delivers.

This is a story where family legacy is a curse, one that makes people fall madly in love with the members of the Goode family.

To be honest, I expected more from this book, even though I tried to go in with moderate expectations. Shea Ernshaw usually crafts all consuming stories that keep you up at night and leave a lasting mark. This one… isn’t quite like that.

Even though the book is short, it still felt too long—repetitive in certain parts. I think it would have benefited from a novella format; I have no doubt that a shorter version, telling the same story, would have had the same impact. That said, I still enjoyed it. My favorite part was the ending, it was so Shea Ernshaw that I just couldn’t be mad about it. It was the perfect way to “end” this story.

A YA Gothic romantasy novel with Belladonna vibes!! Lark is a great FMC and the entire story is one that is easy to fall into and want more of!!

I’ll never be able to see a tulip again without thinking of this book! Shea Ernshaw’s hypnotic writing made this magical realism tale a must read. It drew me in from the first page and kept me reading with an ending I never saw coming.

*I received an arc of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

ES!!! I've been approved by Netgalley! Thank you!
Wow interesting and somewhat original story with an ending that leaves a lot of open questions where you as the reader can make up your mind about, but great story telling. Ernshaw can definitiely write!
Anyway, interesting tale about a family curse in what seems to be a rural town where people fall in love with members of the Goode family. Things go awry when people steal the tulips, which are where the magic of the curse comes from.
Lark Goode, our protagonist, tries to stay away from love for that reason. Love is not real. Love is dangerous. One day, she meets a mysterious boy who is not affected by flowers the way the others are, but little does she know, he has secrets of his own.
A thinker's story indeed that is more character driven and really delves deep in the psych of love, loss, abandonment, and trust, including fate and how we make decisions to lead us there. Lark wants to defy her stars, the curse, but fate seems to lead her to a different route.
The prose of the book was just as intense as the story itself, melodic, atmospheric, and dreamy, pulling the reader into her tormented mind.
Glad this was a quick, interesting read. Loved the relationship dynamic between her and Archer (who apparently also had secrets of his own) as I am also a twin here.
Thank you Shea Ernshaw and Netgalley for the chance to review this ARC!

"The Beautiful Maddening" is yet another beautifully written story by Shea Ernshaw, whose lyrical prose never fails to captivate me. Lark Goode's journey is both tragic and poignant, making for a compelling YA coming-of-age tale.

From the start, Ernshaw drew me into the haunting mystery of the Goode family curse, keeping me eager to unravel its secrets. While I enjoyed the story, the miscommunication trope between the FMC and MMC became a bit frustrating at times. That said, Ernshaw did a great job tying everything together in the end. I only wish we had delved deeper into the origins of the family curse. Overall, it's an engaging read that's both quick and immersive.

Thank you to NetGalley, Shea Ernshaw, and Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I truly enjoyed this read!

A very interesting and unusual read.

I liked the concept of the tulips causing people to fall in love head over heels, in a mad sort of way. The romance between the female lead and her love interest was very well done, and had a sufficient amount of ups and downs and everything in-between. The characters were described in a way that made them seem to come to life, and the pacing was good.

I did not really like the brother - he gave me a very 'ick' feeling, and I felt really sorry for our female lead (although she could have definitely stopped moping around so much). The ending of this story was definitely unexpected.

All in all, I give this book a solid 4/5.

The Beautiful Maddening has a fitting title for such a poetic story. It is a coming of age story for an outcast girl grappling with a curse and protecting her heart. It has a very gothic feel in a contemporary setting. I loved that it takes place in the PNW. Cutwater feels just like home to me and I empathized with Lark’s experiences. There were times that the story felt slow but once it hit its climax, the plot sped up. This is a great choice for teen readers.

Thank you to NetGalley, Shea Ernshaw, and Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing for supplying me with this advanced reader copy of The Beautiful Maddening.

gorgeous, tense, and ominous story filled with tulips and love turned to obsession. 4 stars, just because the main char felt a hair flat at moments. tysm for the arc.

Every year, the Goode family's cursed tulips bloom, and everyone is drawn to them. Obsessed with the idea, they are in love until the flowers wilt and they go back to their regular life. Except this year, it's a beautiful maddening when the flowers are stolen and the town is sent in an uproar with all the coupling and uncoupling and flower obsession. Lark is just trying to slescape the flowers curse but gets tricked into love only to question everything as twists and turns keep coming up. Even the end doesn't tie the story up nicely because it's everything she never wanted.

True Rating: 2 3/4 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this arc.

First and foremost, Ernshaw's writing is stunning. Every line is pure poetry. I found myself rereading lines often, trying to sear them into my brain so that I would never forget them. There is an issue with repetitveness in the early chapters, though. It is as if the author thought of a hundred different ways to describe the tulips' impact on the townsfolk and couldn't choose one, and so they were all implemented at the beginning of successive chapters. The writing is gorgeous every time, but it's too much.

It is up to every reader to deciper the meaning of a book for themselves, but this is what I took away from it.

I think that this book is about overcoming the fear of pain. Of heartbreak. It's about... learning to live. I think it tackles the fear that many of us hold inside us: the fear that we're not lovable and that we'll never be known or genuinely loved beyond empty infatuation or lust. It's about learning that you have to risk everything to feel anything, to experience anything. It's worth the pain. Life is beautiful, and there is even beauty in pain because experiencing pain means that you are experiencing life.

It is a beautiful book. Undeniably. The writing and the takeaway are beautiful. The romance is top tier. The YEARNING, guys. The YEARNING.

I urge everyone who takes the time to read this review to read this book and decide for themselves. But now it's time to dive into the reason why I book that I enjoyed so much at the beginning received such a low rating.

I loved this book up until the end. The first page, the first line, grips you tight and doesn't let you go. However... for me, one page, just one, destroyed the book, unraveled the plot, contradicted the book's meanings, and even the characterization of the main character. Consistency in characterization is very important to me and the character's final act goes against who Lark Goode is at her core. It was a very... human moment, but not one that ultimately made sense.

Spoilers to follow this.

Lark Goode lives by a strong moral code. She is very concerned with free will. It would be simple for her to take advantage of the family curse for her own gain. But she never does. She craves, needs, genuine love. A large portion of her character arc deals with the deep-rooted fear that she will never know it; that she doesn't deserve it. For the first time, she allows a crack in her armor large enough to let someone in, and however much she loves him, she lets him go when she has reason to believe that his free will has been compromised. She does it again when she suspects that her own has been, too. In the final pages, Lark betrays herself. She makes the choice to keep the last, cursed flower petal in order to tie a boy to her whether he wants it or not. She doesn't know if the curse is still active, but she's willing to risk it. She's willing to deprive him of free will if it means that she gets to keep him. She accepts the role of the villain in her own story. Openly. and without fear or regret.

As I stated above, it is a very human act. Each of us would do anything to keep the people that we love with us, but not like this. Lark has spent her entire life protecting the free will of others and for her to do this.... it went against her characterization and it didn't make sense to me.

I can see what Ernshaw was ultimately trying to do. She was trying to maintain ambiguity around the curse and around the ending, but she could've done it in a way that didn't unravel her entire book and disrespect her character. If she allowed Lark to learn that she deserves love and if she allowed her to take the risk, to make that jump... this book would have been powerful beyond words. We are living in an era in which people are living behind screens; in which dating is a nightmare because everyone is afraid to commit, afraid to live. Afraid of heartbreak. Afraid of temporary. In the saving of that one flower petal, she destroys that. For me, she destroyed the book, too. Even in the epiogue, she contradicts herself. She states that the flowers are gone, the garden destroyed; but people still stumble on a flower and the curse endures and both can't be true at once. That might be fixed in editing, but it bothered me. It felt like she couldn't decide on an ending and like she wanted to be ambiguous but also not.

The truth is, I wanted to give it an even lower rating, but I loved the bulk of it so much that I couldn't do it.

I think that the ending is going to be extremely divisive among readers and I look forward to and dread the discourse

It had a ton of promise but ended up being a little repetitive. I was hoping for a happier outcome for FMC as well.

I was so excited to read this book by one of my favorite aesthetic authors. I love Shea Ernshaw's haunting prose and poetic descriptions! This story in particular was very appealing to me based on a concept I haven't seen before—enchanted tulips. I was swept away by the generations-long love curse and the family's quest to break the spell. I was simply entranced, just like the characters, falling hopelessly in love with this tragic (yet hopeful) tale.

I absolutely adore anything Shea Ernshaw writes. She is one of my top three favorite authors and i would literally read anything she publishes.

And she’s done it again! The Beautiful Maddening was absolutely fantastic! The author wrote a story that was so well written I found myself flying through the pages, unable to put the book down, pondering what would happen next. My favorite piece of this entire story was how believable the characters were.

The writing is clear and clean, and very immersive. The book hums along at a good clip, but the pacing makes sure we're given time to breathe between plot-intensifying moments. The story was absolutely engaging and the work that went into the settings was noticeable and superb. I felt absolutely transported and I'm so incredibly glad I was able to read an arc of this story.

This book was beautifully poetic in its prose. It was a slower paced love story and while I am glad that I read it, it was a little tougher to continue with the story as it was slower paced. The author was creative and wove her story well, but ultimately it just wasn't my style.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. My opinion is entirely my own.