Did not finish. I liked the writing but I was not connecting with the characters. It has elements that I know others will really enjoy though.

Curse, Tulips, magic ,romance.
Can tulips make you fall madly in love the town people believes so.
Voluntarily reviewed.

Shea Ernshaw is one of my favorite contemporary fantasy writers. I love the way she writes YA romance, with a hint of magic. If you also love magical and haunting YA novels, make sure this one is on your early summer TBR.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for allowing me to ARC read this in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first Shea Ernshaw book and my first look at her style of writing. And I did like her writing. Her writing had great flow and style.

So, I thought this book had potential. I liked the idea of the magic tulips. However, the follow-through didn’t hit for me. I was hoping for more about the tulips and how they were magic. What we got was a love story between Lark and the boy she thought that she loved. I am not keen on the insta-love trope and that is what this was. Then at the end Lark was a bit of a hypocrite. The entire book she was all about getting the tulips back from everyone that stole them and making sure that no one else had a magic tulip. Then at the end, she wasn’t willing to give hers up in order to free her “love” from the spell.

I felt like the characters didn’t have a ton of depth. Lark was a twin and we hardly got any exposure to her twin. The only times that we really got a feel for him was when he was relishing in the magic from the tulips, when he was trying to push her to leave, or the end when he was attempting to defend the tulips. I wish we would have gotten more of their relationship and how they worked together to live without either of their parents. And yes, that was another issue. Yes they were written as 18, but they were alone prior to turning 18. They were living on their own because their parents left them.

Overall, I don’t know that I would look into any more of Shea’s books. I wasn’t super keen on this one.

Review posted to GoodReads on 6/24/25
Review submitted to Amazon for approval on 6/24/25
Review not posted to IG due to 3 star review

3.5 Stars

This YA fantasy was a great read! I loved the unique idea of tulips having power and how springtime makes people fall in love, especially with the Goode family.

Lark falling for the only boy immune to her family's charm was such a fun setup. It perfectly captured that first crush excitement and that feeling of wanting to explore the world beyond your small town as a teenager.

Read if you like:
* Coming-of-age love stories
* Magical realism
* Lyrical writing
* Quick reads
* Eerie settings

The author's writing style was poetic with lines like, “We have to make our own mistakes. We have to risk everything so that we feel something. So that we live.”

I rated it 3.5 stars because the last half felt a bit flat and didn't live up to its potential to me. I read this one in one sitting. Making for a fun and fast paced reading experience.

Thank you Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Archer and Lark Goode are cursed twins. Every year the tulips in the back yard bloom a beautiful white with a crimson streak, and every year the towns people who get to close to the Goode's will fall madly in love with them. While Archer uses the curse to his advantage, Lark has sworn of love entirely. That is until Oak walks into her life. A boy she's never seen before but she can't help but be drawn to him. Oak doesn't seem affected by the tulips, or so Lark thinks.

I really enjoyed the idea behind the story. It's a touch magical with a curse passed down through the Goode family for generations. However, some of the story was a bit repetitive when it came to the curse. I'm sure it was just to really make sure you understand how against Lark is using the tulips for love but I was a bit overwhelmed with it. The descriptions in the story are top notch. I felt like I could hear the old house falling down and almost smell the tulips. Shea is always great about making you feel like you can step right into her stories! This one was no different. You really get to know both Lark, Archer, and Oak. I gotta say my favorite scene in the whole book was the boat and the fireflies. I truly felt like I was right there!! I'll probably read this one again in the fall ❤️

I really enjoyed this new Young Adult fantasy! It reminded me a lot of Practical Magic but with a Young Adult point of view.

I really loved this one. It felt like poetry while I was reading it. Tragic and beautiful.
It’s a great YA read without feeling like it. There’s so many layers that you’re not sure what to believe when you get to the end. And let me tell you, I was shook. It almost made me want more but it wrapped up exactly how it needed to.

I definitely recommend if you want a magical little read that makes you feel all kinds of things. I will also definitely be recommending this to any one of our YA kiddos. This will be a great one for high school.

I love her books and this one did not disappoint!

I want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read the arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I went into this book thinking that it would revolve around the Goode family's curse and the magic tulips that grow in their garden. I knew this was YA but the premise sounded very interesting and I do enjoy a good YA fantasy from time-to-time. This book was disappointing to me. The beginning of the book started out with the background of the Tulip garden and how the Goode family's curse came to be. which I enjoyed. However, it felt as if the whole story was put on the back burner in exchange for Larke's infatuation with Oak. I personally think this was a missed opportunity because the Tulip and curse premise would have been a lot better had our FMC focused more on "breaking the curse" rather than her relationship with Oak. My main complaint besides the lack of character depth was that the whole book Larke said she avoided the tulips and did not want anything to do with the curse, but in the end she keeps one single tulip to ensure Oak stays with her. Where did Larke go? Her character did a complete 180.

Ah, cursed tulips. Never thought I'd read (and enjoy!) a book whose premise was literally "cursed tulips", but here we are. First, I enjoyed the deep dive into the real, historical event that the book bases its premise on, the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 1600s. And honestly, I am high key mad at my Dutch tour guide for taking us through fields up tulips and not giving us all the tea on this little slice of historical weirdness!

Lark and her brother basically attract people to them via tulip insanity, I guess. So everyone at school, when the tulips bloom, are drawn to these folks like moths to a flame, and they cannot trust that anyone's feelings are ever genuine. Which sure, that sounds like a bummer, but Lark is next-level over it. Their mother has conveniently left town, their father is hardly in the picture, so these two teens live alone in the tulip house. What? Where's CPS at? I needed to really suspend disbelief because that just isn't how that works. But I'll put that aside for the sake of the story. I liked that Lark tried to distance herself from her classmates because she didn't want them to fall in fake-love with her, that earned her some points with me.

But when she meets Oak, she really wishes she could trust feelings, because she's starting to feel some for him. She also is bound and determined to leave Tulip Town as soon as graduation is over, which complicates her budding feelings even more. Here's the thing: I understand all of that, but Lark spends the whole book saying "I cannot trust my feelings!" then "I'mma go ahead and do it anyway" and then "Oh noes, I shouldn't have trusted my feelings!" over and over. I get that she's young, but isn't that the definition of insanity? Regardless, I was still mostly enjoying the story, especially the complicated relationship she has with her twin Archer. The atmosphere was also definitely on point. But the ending, I really did not like the ending. It felt like... (view spoiler)

Bottom Line: An atmospheric romance, I liked it more than I didn't, despite the flaws.

I absolutely loved the beautiful way this book was written! It really made it for me. The character development was done really well and the world building was easy to understand

I thought the vibes are this were great, especially if you're a fan of not only Shea Ernshaw's writing style but also magical realism! It's haunting(but in a very low key way), mysterious and also romantic too. It's steadily paced with characters that are easy to love, but it's truly the vibes I loved the most.

Thank you so much to Simon Teen for my ARC!

4/5

2.5 🌟

This one wasn’t quite for me. I really liked the concept, but the story felt flat in places and lacked depth. I found myself wishing for more development throughout.

That said, I did enjoy the author’s writing style—it felt almost poetic at times. I also enjoyed that it was a quick read!

“The Beautiful Maddening” is a very reflective and somber young-adult romance with magical realism. The writing was lyrical and descriptive which was very beautiful, BUT the descriptions got a bit repetitive throughout the book.

I personally was hoping for more background on the magic of the tulips and a stronger focus on the two main characters actively falling in love. Overall, this was a very nice read!

Read if you love:
- Curses
- Magical realism
- Flower power
- Lyrical writing

Thank you NetGalley, Simon Teen, Simon & Schuster, and Shea Ernshaw for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC! This was my first read as a SimonTeen Influencer, and I was NOT disappointed! :)

I finished this romantic, magical realism book yesterday, and I'm still stewing in my feelings about it. For starters, I loved the writing style. Shea Ernshaw's descriptions of this "beautiful madness" creates a suspenseful, but also cozy atmosphere. Its set in the summer--when the cursed tulips bloom--but I think this book easily fits Fall vibes as well, when readers are looking for something a little magical and eerie. The story had me hooked from the first chapter, and I was as enchanted by Oak as Lark was.

On the flip side, I still have a LOT of questions, and I believe this is a standalone....so I won't be getting answers lol. I was a bit frustrated with the lack of origin story with the tulips(WHY do they cause this love delirium? How does it affect people differently by who holds it? Would the Goodes' problems been all solved if they'd simply moved away and took no tulips with them?) And while I can usually appreciate a fast-paced book, I would have liked seeing what was "normal" for Lark before everything went crazy. I felt it was only alluded to that people would fall madly in love with Lark and her twin brother, but we saw VERY few instances of that happening before the tulips were all over town and attracting others to the tulip-holders.

I was very relieved that there was an HEA, but it maybe wasn't AS satisfying as I'd hoped. We still don't know if their relationship had to do with the cursed power of the flowers, or if it was real, genuine love...Oh well. To sum up, I really did enjoy this book but I also have some problems with it haha.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book! This story is about a family cursed by a tulip garden in their yard. Every year when the tulips bloom all the kids at school fall head over heels for Archer and Lark, the twins who live in the Goode house still. Their Mom and Dad have both left. Lark wants to get out of town after she graduates this year, but someone breaks into the tulip garden and steals tulips, the first time this has ever happened. The school goes crazy with love and lust and greedy to get a tulip to find love. But once the tulips die so do the feelings that they bring to everyone. It was a different fantasy, about fate, love, loss, and a curse that leaves Lark and Archer trying to figure out what is next in life.

I thought this was a very good idea. The romance felt very insta-lovey and confusing. I was annoyed with them both in the middle and at the end of the story, but it worked itself out. Overall, I think it was a nice and sweet story. I was super mad at what her brother did. I am glad that they got the ending they wanted.

This leaned a little more heavily into the YA territory than I had originally anticipated, but an enjoyable read nonetheless. The prose was lush, lyrical, and deliberate.

This is a great magical realism book. It was an interesting story to have the girl that everyone wanted to want the one boy who didn’t, but in a unique way. I do feel like the story setup was slower pace (which felt appropriate - we’re in a small town) but the ending and epilogue moved to resolve things much faster. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book!

DNF at 30% I just wasn’t really feeling the overall book, I think this will work great for other people! It just felt too young for me