Reviews of The Curse Girl

This is a great modernized version of the beauty and the beast. I loved it and couldn't put it down. A sequel would be perfect.

This is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It is actually pretty similar but with a couple of twists. Bee grew up knowing that something wasn't right with the Curse House and heard a lot of stories about the house. Bee is terrified when she is sent to live in the Curse House by her father to help break the curse.

At first Bee's only concern is to escape the house and get back to her old life but once finding out that the house refuses to let her go, she decides to help break the curse. Will is not overly receptive to Bee and the feeling is mutual. However, they decide a truce is in order and they throw themselves into solving the riddle and breaking the curse. The curse that was intended for his brother from his sister-in-law. She had found him unfaithful and decided to put a curse on him but the curse went awry and cursed the house instead with everyone inside it, which now includes Bree.

I thought the story was a fun new take on Beauty and the Beast with the Fey Lands and all the magic involved. This is a great read for any YA reader.

Favorite quote...
Shortly after Bee is sent to the Curse house she is talking to Will and his sister Rose. She asks his what he likes to do and I thought his response was pretty funny considering everyone thinks that he is this evil, human eating beast.
"I prey on innocent villagers and terrify their children, and sometimes when I'm feeling really evil, I read books or paint."

In Beauty aka Bee’s town everyone knows the story about the mansion and the beast that lives inside. The stories vary but one this is the same….the beast is not someone you want to come in contact with! After Bee’s father tries to still some magic from the mansion he is forced to let Bee live there or their whole family will be cursed. Once inside the mansion everyone starts calling her “The curse girl” and she realizes she is part of a much bigger plan. Missing her family and friends, Bee tries to find a way out of the house and away from Will (The Beast) but the windows won’t break and the doors won’t open. She is now bound by magic and if she wants to break the curse, her and Will are going to have to work together. Will is handsome but a total jerk, only the more time they spend together the more Bee likes him. Also, the house isn’t all bad and Bee makes friends with Rose, Will’s sister and the servants. Now this isn’t just about her getting out, she’s emotionally involved and wants to save everyone from this curse that wasn’t even meant for them. Is it possible she’s falling for the Beast? Are they ever going to break the curse?

This was an enjoyable short read, but I think I set myself up for disappointment. This book has received great reviews and had a beautiful cover so I was expecting something more than what I got. Naturally the story was pretty predictable because it is a re-do of “Beauty and the Beast,” which everyone already knows. I think I would have liked this better if I hadn’t heard of “Beastly” first, because that is a hard one to follow after. That being said, I did love the dialog between the characters. You could really see them changing and starting to like…then love one another. I also think the concept of the curse coming from a witch that is now in the “Fay Lands” rather interesting and would like to read more about that magical world. Beauty was very lovable and sweet and it was always easy to relate to her. A cute afternoon read for any YA lover.

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A gripping story from the start. Kate Ellison brings you into a house that has had a curse put on it by an angry witch. This house has is a legend and tells of a beast that lives inside who eats children. Bee, has come to be trapped inside this house.She is the only one who is able to break the curse and set the beast(Will) and his sister Rose, free. It is a lesson to be learned that breaks the curse.
I was thrilled with this book, the characters are strong and I cannot wait to read more from this author!

I love a good fairy tale retelling, but they can be hard to find. I tend to read them over and over again to compensate. This one is going on my reread list right next to my collection of Robin McKinley retellings--which is to say I loved it. I stayed up far too late last night finishing it.

This is the same tale we all know, but there are just enough twists to it to make it original and interesting. The characters are lovely, from Bee all the way down to the house staff, and it's easy to imagine yourself sitting there with them, trying to figure out how to break that pesky curse.

I'll be picking up something else by this author for sure. Highly recommended.

I have been sitting here for about 10 minutes, trying to start writing. But I can’t seem to stop ogling the gorgeous cover of The Curse Girl. From the beautiful girl, to the gorgeous bluish/purplish colors, and the magic dust (or is it stars?); the cover to this book is a definite win.

As you might have deduced from the synopsis, The Curse Girl is a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast. I’ve never read a re-telling of a classic tale, so I was excited to take this book on. When the story opens, Beauty (who also goes by Bee) has been betrayed, then abandoned by her father. Bee has been given up to the Beast to pay for her father’s sin. When her father leaves Bee at the Curse House, she must enter the spooky mansion and become a prisoner of the curse herself. As you might imagine, given that his nickname is Beast, the owner of the mansion, Will is arrogant, hateful and condescending. The house is filled with employers and family members who have also been saddled with the curse. Bee must decide whether to succumb to her fate, or work with Will to solve the riddle that makes up the curse.

The Curse Girl is filled with several memorable characters. There is Bee, of course. Bee is a funny, snarky, spunky girl. She never lets Will’s “beastly” personality get her completely down. She is immediately up to the challenge of solving the riddle. Will, as I stated before, definitely has some character flaws. While he is often irritable and rude, you always get the sense of his underlying despair and vulnerability. Will’s sister, Rose, is a delightful little girl. She is often the peacemaker to Will and Bee. There is also Liam, a boy chained in the basement of the mansion, whose screams wake Bee at night. The most surprising character of The Curse Girl is the house itself. Kate Ellison managed to make the house into another living, breathing, albeit spooky character.

While all of these elements make for a great story, The Curse Girl is not limited to the modern world. There is also Fae Land, the home of all mythical creatures. There are faeries, trolls, witches, elves vampires and werewolves. No one in Fae Land is trustworthy, and all are dangerous. Of course, the mystery to breaking the curse is the driving force of the story. What will break the curse? Will Bee and Will find a way to work together before time runs out?

The Curse Girl is a story filled with a tremendous sense of magic and wonder, which made it a very charming book. Kate Ellison managed to take a “tale as old as time” and create a charming story of her own.



*I received a copy of The Curse Girl from the author, Kate Ellison, who asked me to give an honest review*

In this novella based on Beauty and the Beast, teenage Bee (Beauty) has heard the stories about the Beast and his nightmare of a magic house--all of the stories sound impossible, and none of them give her the slightest confidence that she won't be harmed by the Beast inside. Bee's father has made the ultimate mistake of trespassing on the Beast's property, and Bee is the one who has to pay for the mistake by living with the Beast. When the Beast shows himself, Bee discovers that he's nice-looking except for the scar that marks one side of his face, and he's not particularly frightening, except for his disdainful, snobby attitude. His real name is Will and he lives in the house with his younger sister Rose, and his named-for-what-they-do servants Housekeeper and Butler. He's under a curse and needs Bee to help him break it, but he doesn't know how she can help, and Bee's barely convinced that she wants to help such a nasty person.

She tries to use her wits to escape from the magic house, but the doors refuse to open and the windows are unbreakable. And the house truly has an eerie Gothic vibe, from the smiling statues in the Hall of Regret to the underground Labyrinth, to the dead conservatory. The setting really contributes to the mood of the story, and it's clear that while Bee might not be in any life-threatening danger, any number of weird, impossible things could happen in this place. And weird things do start happening, especially after Bee discovers a certain chained-up prisoner in the labyrinth.

We might not know much about Bee's background, but she's still a strong and sympathetic character who's acting brave in the midst of a bad situation. There's some really rough emotional issues between Bee and her dad because, lets face it, he has sacrificed his own daughter to who-knows-what in order to save himself from the magic that marks him as a trespasser. We expect this sort of bizarre abandonment to happen in dark old faery tales, but when it happens in modern fiction, you experience the full weight of a parental betrayal that's impossible to justify. In Alex Flinn's Beastly, she made Beauty's father be a drug addict, to explain why'd he'd willingly hand his his own daughter to a dangerous stranger. In The Curse Girl, the father seems like he's just very thoughtless and weak, and Bee resents him for it, but his mistake allows her to find out what she's really made of.

The romance starts as a near-enemies relationship, like you'd expect. Will and Bee exchange a lot of verbal barbs because she automatically distrusts him and he's immediately dislikes her, though he needs her to break his curse. I really like this version of the Beast--not a brawny monster like in the Disney version (though I love him, too) and not really the standard handsome-guy-turned-ugly guy either. He's intelligent and caustic and he's trying to figure out the rules of his own little supernatural world, just like Bee is. In another upside, he's not some stalker that demanded that Bee's father hand her over to him--getting Bee wasn't really even his idea, so he's still a bit of a brat but he's no kidnapper. I like the gradual development of Bee and Will's relationship. It's halfway through the story before they've even established a good, tense friendship and their struggles to connect are fantastic to watch. The end of the story definitely made me smile.

With a strong heroine, a well-layered mystery, and a truly great setting, The Curse Girl makes for a very solid paranormal read. It's a really compelling take on Beauty and the Beast, and I'll be looking forward to seeing what Kate Ellison comes up with in the future.

I love loved loved this book!
I was really taken aback from how much I came to care about both Will and Bee. They really were a beautiful couple.

When Bee agreed to sacrifice herself for the well-being of her family, due to her father's stupid mistake, all she could feel was terror. Everyone knew about the Cursed house and the beast that lived in it. Some said the Beast even ate children. Some said it was a real beast, a terrible, appalling creature of cruelty and hideousness.

But what Bee saw in that place was a haughty, bad-tempered boy,Will, who had lived in the curse and misery too long to still have feelings or care about anything.
She tried to warm up to everyone else in the house, his sister Rose, the Housekeeper, the Butler...but life inside the house seemed dull and well...lifeless.

She needed to go out, get back to her boyfriend, Drew, and her friends, but Will wouldn't cooperate.
Her only consolation was making origami (something her grandmother had taught her) and Liam, a man trapped from the curse of the house as well. Lonely and in pain. In so much pain that she had to hold his hand throughout the night, in the dark, not even knowing what he looked like.

It takes days, months to finally warm up to Will and get his help to break the curse. Months that, to her horror, could translate into years to the outside world....
She gets to know the Land of the Fey, magic, spells, the trickery of elves and so much more. Plus the romance and its development was quite plausible and sweet.

There were like 6-7 spelling/gramm. mistakes throughout but it didn't deprive from the story.
Totally worth your time.
I can't wait for her next book "A Sky Without Stars" to come out. It has a bit of a dystopia feel to it and I think I love it already! XD