A girl cursed with terrible luck, a deeply kissable prince, sinister woods, murderous conspiracies, and enough magical chaos to power an entire fairytale kingdom. Delightfully dramatic.
📚 Pre-Reading Thoughts
The premise immediately gave me strong The Princess Bride energy: adventurous, funny, self-aware fantasy that still fully commits to the emotional stakes underneath the banter. “Girl everyone believes is cursed” is also such a good fairytale framework because it opens the door to all sorts of questions about belief, identity, and how communities decide who becomes their scapegoat.
Plus: spooky woods. Always a strong opening move.
📖 Post-Reading
As I thought…
- This absolutely nails the balance between humour and adventure. The quips never undercut the tension; instead they make the danger feel sharper because the characters are still trying to joke while everything is actively going wrong around them.
- The pacing is great fun. Every time it feels like the story might settle, another betrayal, magical complication, or terrible decision appears around the corner.
- The fairytale atmosphere is strong throughout: witches making bargains, cursed reputations, dangerous forests, inconveniently charming princes. It feels classic while still modern in tone.
It surprised me by…
- How much the story digs into the idea of belief creating reality. Risa’s “curse” works not just as magic, but as a social force - years of blame shaping both how others see her and how she sees herself.
- The emotional core around self-worth and self-belief. Underneath all the adventure and sparkling magic is a genuinely thoughtful thread about learning to separate your identity from the stories other people tell about you.
- The magic system! There’s enough structure there to feel satisfying, but it still keeps that slightly wild fairytale unpredictability.
And honestly, Risa and Javi have exactly the kind of dynamic this sort of story needs: exasperation, chemistry, terrible timing, and at least one person internally screaming “this is inconvenient.”
🎧 Music Pairing
🎵 Featured Song:
I See Fire
🎶 Vibe Album:
How to Train Your Dragon: Music from the Motion Picture — soaring adventure, emotional momentum, and the feeling that someone is about to run dramatically through a forest.
🎧 Artist Recommendation:
Florence + the Machine — particularly the big, theatrical, slightly witchy songs that sound like destiny arriving at full speed.
🌈 Vibe Check
- Colour Palette: emerald green, silver moonlight, deep plum, gold sparks, midnight blue
- Soundtrack: crackling magic, galloping horses, branches snapping in dark woods, dramatic orchestral swells
- Season: autumn fairytale season, when the woods feel one conversation away from becoming enchanted
- Mood: adventurous, romantic, sharp-witted, defiantly hopeful
- Scent: damp moss, woodsmoke, candle wax, crushed pine needles
🃏 Tarot Pull
The Magician
Power shaped through belief, agency reclaimed, and learning that the stories told about you are not necessarily the truth. Perfect for a novel where perception itself carries magical weight.
👀 For fans of
- The Princess Bride
- Sorcery of Thorns
- magical adventure stories where curses are emotional as well as supernatural
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