From the first page to the last, reading The Cursed was a struggle. And while in part it was a ‘me’ issue, the book itself also played a part in making this a less than pleasant reading experience.

After reading—and struggling—my way through the previous book, The Coven , I faintly remember having signed up for an ARC of this book sometime last year. I never heard anything back (typically there’s some sort of email notification of whether you’ve been approved or not, and to check your kindle if you have), so amidst a redundantly unending plethora of other books that stole my attention, I completely forgot about it.

Until, lo and behold, months later, while scrolling through my Kindle trying to pick something to read to slim down the excessive amount of books I always end up downloading during the Stuff Your Kindle events, I stumbled across the cover for The Cursed buried beneath the pile of all the other books I’d downloaded since it had landed, unnotified, in my device—here’s where I apologize for this review being a year late, oops!

And, small PSA, something important I noticed almost immediately was that this duology must be read back to back. These are less two separate books and more a single unfinished story broken down into two tomes. I was barely a handful of pages in when it became glaringly obvious I’d need to go back and, at the very least, re-read the last 3 or so chapters of The Coven before this sequel was going to make any sort of sense for me—and that was exactly what I did. But it wasn’t enough. There were a lot of things from the first book that were mentioned that I had very faint recollections about. So, word to the wise, don’t wait a year and a half between reading one book and the next (or do if you have superhuman memory—your choice).

But aside from that, I think what made me stumble my way through this novel was the author’s syntax. At times, it made absolutely no sense to me and I’d need to read sentences and paragraphs multiple times to try and understand what was being conveyed.

Admittedly, I’m not a native English speaker, but I do have a C2 level, which means I’m basically bilingual. And yet, to me this book was comparable to reading something written in Yoda speech, if that makes sense. I have no idea if this was an ARC issue, or just a writing style choice, but hopefully it was the former. If you plan to read this, it’s worth considering if maybe going for the audiobook would be a better idea—as of right now, the audio version has a considerably higher rating than the printed version, so it’s worth keeping in mind IMO.

I remember the last book mentioning something in the prologue about how the male lead character wasn’t just morally gray, but a true villain and how disappointed I’d been with him back then. Yeah, turns out he was just taking a few steps back to get more of a running start. It was like as soon as his spirit went from his vessel to his actual physical body, his true nature also emerged.

He became off the charts jealous and possessive. The embodiment of a red flag. Grey wanted to possess Willow, to sequester her and keep her all to himself. Wanted to isolate her and pull her away from everyone else, until he was the only one she could turn to, the only one to be there, the sole constant and comfort in her life.

He wanted to, basically, become the center of her universe. But as toxic as that was, those wants didn’t stem from a place of evil, but from a selfish desire to have his feelings returned. She was—and had been for some time—the center of his universe. And after being alone for hundreds of years, he craved the closeness and companionship.

He was awful, manipulative, violent and unrepentant. But, at least when it came to her, it was all born of loneliness, of wanting to have his love, devotion and obsession reciprocated. It was not ill-intentioned, just misguided. It didn’t justify his actions, but it meant things weren’t black and white. I both hated and liked him a lot better this time around.

As for the political side of the story, with the Covenant, the Tribunal, the Coven, the vessels and everyone and everything in between: it was hella confusing. Especially for me, since as I said, I remembered jack shit about the preceding book. Again, there were constant call-backs and references to previous events that I remembered nothing about. And constantly feeling like my grasp on the story was tenuous and unstable really impacted my ability to get sucked in and lost in it.

In all honesty, since this whole book was centered around a revenge plot we all knew wouldn’t happen, in a way it made the whole thing a little pointless. At the end of the day, as much hate-to-love-to-hate-to-love was going on, this was always supposed to be a romance, which is not the genre for one of the main characters to be murdered by the other. But also, I think the timeline of events was way too fast. The pace was a whirlwind. Everything unfolded over a handful of days during which Willow changed her mind a bazillion times and kept flip flopping between her burning anger at his betrayal and giving into the lust he inspired. I found it to be equal parts bewildering and annoying.

And speaking of annoying, WTF was that ending?

Slipping in a prophecy about an—as of yet—inexistent daughter that’ll play the role of “Chosen One” and fix a mess that’s been going on for centuries (or even millennia) and suddenly involves God and evil angles? What? That’s what you do for a season finale, not the last ever episode of a show.

Writing a whole duology only so it could play the role of prequel to the actual story is nuts. That’s the type of stuff I, as a reader, need to know before jumping into a series so I know what I’m getting myself into. Introducing a major development at the very end meant the last notes were ones of unfinished-ness and lack of resolution, which was not a pleasant feeling to have been left with. A major conflict was presented and assembled and then left hanging. And to make the whole thing even more of a bitter pill to swallow, the epilogue was from the POV of completely different characters that had no important role to play in the main plot, almost like a novella spin-off or something was being set-up.

I won’t be coming back to this series.