Ever Cursed by Corey Ann Haydu | Book Review

★

1 Star | Young Adult | Fiction | Fairy Tale

Utter Garbage!

5 princesses and a queen have been cursed by a witch seeking justice. To break the curse, they must find a clock, a tear, a lock of hair and a crown. While on their quest to break the spell, they will learn that their kingdom is in far more danger than from a witch’s curse.

How in the world was this book published!? The only evidence that this book went through proper channels for publishing is the book cover that caught my attention and the lack of spelling and grammatical errors, THAT’S IT! Who was the content editor for this book!? Clearly no one because there are so many issues that I could go on forever with, but I honestly don’t want to waste another minute of my time with this book. The publishers slapped this novel together as quickly as possible for teenagers who wouldn’t have the slightest discernment to know any better than be spoon-fed this garbage.

The dialogue didn’t make sense sometimes or contradicted previous things said in the book.   
      Why would your subjects call you “Your Spellbound,” which is confusing because it makes it sound like they are stating the obvious, but in this case, it’s the princess’s new title. Either way, every character has no problem constantly reminding them they have this curse.
      Which also makes the dialogue cookie cutter. All the royals act like they can’t get enough of the cursed princesses, “Why have a regular princess when we can have a spellbound one?”
      One character is so worried about their siblings being left alone and needs to help them, but then starts talking and laughing about other things instead.

Which moves into the other issue. There is nothing to these characters, they are a wisp of a thought, if that, for most of them. EVERY SINGLE MAN, except one, in this book wants their women quiet, frozen in a box, but still screwable. They are all represented as detestable and cruel beings, especially the royal men. Even the princesses are so self-centered they apparently didn’t see what was going on around them. Their mother so weak she simply kept silent and taught them to do the same but could suddenly stand her ground later. EVERY SINGLE WOMAN who had been sexually assaulted had issues with loud noises (not realistic in the least!). Even the royal women were depraved, but never the witches. Yet, they do terrible things too, though the author keeps writing as if they haven’t.

Oh, my word, the number of contradictions, continuity problems and supposed justice in this book were mind-boggling. When did two wrongs start to make a right!? The king does horrible things over many years, so I’m going to do something horrible back to the king, yet not to the king directly but to his family and kingdom. This happens multiple times in this book and not just to the king.

Supposed Justice:
     “I needed the king to suffer, so I hurt the princesses. You all taught me about justice…”
     “I needed them to feel my pain, so I put their women and children in…”
      When speaking with some witches, a character learns that a witch only casts a spell when they must teach something…yet this character isn’t angry they’ve been cursed, but understands it was necessary.

Contradictions:
     A witch was so angry when she heard what the king did that in her rage she went to the castle and cursed the princesses, but then apologized and said it needed to be done.
     A witch is waiting on an invitation to the castle since witches never go to the castle without an invite, but an invite wasn’t needed when a witch cursed the princesses.
     Only witches are gender fluid, even though witches are mostly women. Then later we hear that ordinary people are gender fluid as well.
     A witch has to break the spell, has thought of thousands of ways how to break said spell, but doesn’t know what they’ll do to break this spell yet and doesn’t even know what they did to create the spell to begin with.
     A central point this entire book’s plot is predicated on wasn’t even needed!

Continuity Issues:
Multiple characters are being molested on their way back to their meeting point but are too tired to get away from the assault they are enduring. These characters are far enough away that others are unaware of anything going on, despite the noise, to provide them assistance. A character in the molested group distracts the attackers and suddenly all of them are close enough to their meeting point and suddenly have the energy they didn’t have previously to get away.
      
Redundancies and Pushing Agendas:
The author constantly reminded and made sure to spoon-feed the reader, so they wouldn’t miss the agenda of this book.
     In one scene a character begins to undress in front of multiple characters and one character starts to look away, then thinks to themself, “No, I’ve looked away long enough,” and turns back to the character continuing to undress.
     Thinking to themself again, “I deserve to be cursed.” 
     A father tells their child stories about kings and queens falling in love, but the child wanted to hear about princesses falling in love and asked if they could marry a princess one day.
     The patriarchy is what is wrong with the kingdoms, only the men wanted the power and didn’t want to share it.
    “A queen is a person with a crown,” then crowns appear on the heads of everyone in the kingdom, including the men.
    
The only thing I thought interesting about this book was the consequence of witches casting spells, which was unique to me, but even the author had trouble keeping that in order.

In almost every single way I detested this book and will not be reading any more by this author.

Buy from Amazon

---

Thank you for trusting us with your book!
​Please know that we use affiliate links when you choose to purchase from our site at no cost to you. Your support helps us to continue discovering more books worth reading for you.