FINALLY, a good Beauty and the Beast retelling where the girl is the beast. Why is the girl never the beast? Is it because girls and women couldn’t possibly be beastly? Is it because women are expected to uphold a certain standard, to be perfect all the time? Is it because it’s just too unbelievable to some that a woman could have beast-like levels of rage? Is all of this beside the point? Pretty much, yes, but the point I’m driving at is that when I found out this was a Beauty and the Beast retelling where the young woman was the beast, I was very, very excited to check it out, so thank you to Penguin Teen for providing me with the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Curses gives us Merit and Tevin and their diverse band of friends and companions. Merit is a young woman of title and status who is expected to adhere to certain standards. When she ticks off her mom and, in turn, a godling faerie, she is cursed to become a beast. She doesn’t get a cool rose in a little glass case, but she does get a very specific time limit: she must marry either someone of her mother’s choosing or someone who truly loves her by her 18th birthday, or she is doomed to remain a beast forever. And unfortunately, it’s looking like it’s going to be someone of her mother’s choosing.
Enter Tevin, a professional conman with fae blood. In fact, his whole family are career con artists. When a con of his mother’s goes wrong, she trades Tevin’s services in exchange for her freedom. Tevin agrees to stay with Merit and help her sort through the potential suitors selected by her mother. Merit has been burned once before—badly—and she doesn’t want to go through it again. Her logic is that Tevin, as a con artist, will easily be able to spot a con artist. But of course, things always end up a little more complicated than that don’t they?
She gestured to Tevin. “You’re the very definition of everything I’m trying to avoid. I’m hoping you can recognize your own and help me avoid them.”
From the get go, Merit is adamant that Tevin is absolutely not a candidate for marriage, and everyone who has ever read any book ever is reading along like, okay, sure, we’ll just see about that now, won’t we?
“You are not, nor will you ever be an option, Mr. Dumont.”
“Believe it or not, I understood that after you said ‘full offense, I didn’t ask you to marry me,’ earlier.”
So Tevin moves into Merit’s property, bringing his brother, Amaury, and his cousin, Val. Merit brings her guard Kaiya (who is honestly probably my favorite character) and her healer, Ellery. And you know…hijinks ensue. The gang begins attending a rigorous schedule of constant social events set up by Merit’s mother to help Merit get to know her suitors. Everyone has their own little agenda, and Tevin and Merit—against all plans—find themselves growing closer and closer.
I have to be honest with you, it has been a looooong time since I’ve read a fantasy book that I really, really enjoyed, especially a YA fantasy book. I haven’t even attempted many for quite some time now because it started to seem like everything was just so much of the same, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this one. Finally, something different. Yes, it’s a retelling, so in that sense some might not consider it incredibly “different”, but it’s a retelling that’s actually done in a really unique and enjoyable way. I loved a lot of things about this book, including the gender swapping of the beast storyline.
There’s also a major found family aspect to the story, and y’all know I’m a sucker for that. Yes, some of the people in the book are actually related by blood—Tevin, Amaury, and Val, for example are related, but the rest of the gang really bonds and they all end up caring for each other so much. Even before they all sort of come together as one unit, I loved seeing the found family bond between Merit, Kaiya, and Ellery. Merit’s mother isn’t exactly the best and she hasn’t always been there for her the way Merit wishes she would be, but it’s clear that even if Kaiya and Ellery started out working for her, they’re now her true support system.
“The problem with friends, Merit thought, was that they could not only see your little self-delusions, but felt comfortable calling you out on them. Also, you couldn’t toss them out the window, because you loved them and they were right. Even if they were annoying.”
The characters in this book are fantastic. Merit is a shameless bookworm with an attitude. Kaiya, one of my favorites, is a total badass. Ellery, despite their eyerolls and total lack of amusement for Tevin and Co.’s antics, will do anything for Merit and is always there at the drop of a hat. Val is a total firecracker and Amaury has that dry humor that I love.
“I’m always fun,” Amaury said deadpan. “Look at me now. I am a ball of laughs and jollity. A human construct of giddy social merriment.”
And Tevin. Tevin reminded me why I so love the “bad boy with a heart of gold” trope in YA. He has a checkered past and no shortage of smartass remarks for any and every situation. He almost never stops making sarcastic comments, and it’s hilarious. It seems like his presence really brings Merit out of her shell and I loved seeing their sarcastic, witty back and forth. That’s my favorite kind of romance. And, without spoiling too many things, it isn’t exactly the only romantic storyline in the book. There’s a bit of a crossover romance between the two friend groups, but I’ll let you read it to find out who! (All I’ll tell you is it’s really, really cute.)
There’s a great cast of characters in this aside from just the main people, as well. There are some great little side characters, like Merit’s Curse Support Group where she meets with other people who have been cursed by faerie godlings, or the well-meaning but awkward suitors like Cedric, who has recently taken to walking a peacock around on a leash at social events. One of my personal favorites is Willa, a young woman who has been cursed so that when she speaks, snakes and other reptiles fall out of her mouth. “The owner of the shop has complained that I’m creating a pest problem,” she complains early on about a local café. “I suggested the judicious use of mongooses.”
Observant fans of the OG Beauty and the Beast renditions will spot a lot of fun little nods to the source material, like one of the suitors, Freddie who Merit says, “decorates with antlers, skins, and stuffed prizes, and when he isn’t hunting, he’s drinking” (remind you of anyone?) or a scene where Merit, in beast form, struggles to eat soup properly with a spoon. These are two of many little references that I thought were a lot of fun to come across in the story, so if you’re a Beauty and the Beast fan, I imagine you’ll like them, too.
I really loved this book, I loved the characters, and was joyfully surprised at how much fun I had reading it. This is a good four or four and a half star read, and I highly recommend it, especially for fans of YA, YA fantasy, Beauty and the Beast fans, and lovers of certain tropes, like the begrudging friends to romance trope. I highly encourage you to check this one out on July 20th when it releases! I really think people should be so excited about this one.
Thank you again to Penguin Teen for the ARC!