Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon
Expected Publication Date: February 18th, 2020 by Simon and Schuster Canada // Simon Pulse
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance,
Format: e-ARC
Source: NetGalley

Goodreads

Pre-order: Amazon | BookDepository | Indigo

Summary (from NetGalley): Will the princess save the beast?

For Princess Jaya Rao, nothing is more important than family. When the loathsome Emerson clan steps up their centuries-old feud to target Jaya’s little sister, nothing will keep Jaya from exacting her revenge. Then Jaya finds out she’ll be attending the same elite boarding school as Grey Emerson, and it feels like the opportunity of a lifetime. She knows what she must do: Make Grey fall in love with her and break his heart. But much to Jaya’s annoyance, Grey’s brooding demeanor and lupine blue eyes have drawn her in. There’s simply no way she and her sworn enemy could find their fairy-tale ending…right?

His Lordship Grey Emerson is a misanthrope. Thanks to an ancient curse by a Rao matriarch, Grey knows he’s doomed once he turns eighteen. Sequestered away in the mountains at St. Rosetta’s International Academy, he’s lived an isolated existence—until Jaya Rao bursts into his life, but he can’t shake the feeling that she’s hiding something. Something that might just have to do with the rose-shaped ruby pendant around her neck…

As the stars conspire to keep them apart, Jaya and Grey grapple with questions of love, loyalty, and whether it’s possible to write your own happy ending.

Review: After reading When Dimple Met Rishi by Menon and I saw that she had another one out I knew I had to request it.

This book is told from two points of views, Jaya and Grey, and it’s set at St. Rosetta’s Boarding School in the Aspen area. The school is filled with mostly rich, entitled students and the dynamic and school mandated socials was a but hard to believe. However, never been to a boarding school I can’t really judge if this is realistic or not!

What I really enjoyed about this was the little spin on Beauty and the Beast and Grey’s character. I loved his chapters and really wanted to get back into his point of view when I was in Jaya’s. She felt so “ugh” and unlikeable. I really like the message that the book was trying to give with her situation but her actions and inner dialogue had me rolling my eyes.

The pacing of the book was a bit off. The first part seemed to take place in the span of a week and the latter was “two days later”, “three weeks later”, “now suddenly it’s December”. The foreshadowing was quite obvious in all the instances they were placed but I am glad they all got addressed in the end.

All in all, I expected a bit more from this book based on how it has been marketed. I wanted more realistic-ness, more dialogue between characters, more “not convenient” situations. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought I would but I did enjoy it. I won’t be continuing in this series but I will pick up whatever Menon writes next outside of this.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review*

Rating:

FOLLOW ME

• Goodreads
• Instagram (@shelvesofspines)
• Twitter (@shelvesofspines)
• Bloglovin’

** links are unaffiliated