Marissa Meyer: Cursed

You will need to read the first book in this series, Gilded, before you read this one as you will not fully understand and appreciate this book if you have not read it.

Marissa Meyer is back with the second book in her Rumplestiltskin retelling and the darkness wants to take over the light:

The Erlking has one goal to capture a God and wish for the return of his lover, the huntress Perchta from the underworld. Serilda and Guild know that they cannot let that happen but what can they do in this world. They know that they have to break the curse that binds them to the dark side of the veil but they need to find their bodies first. As Serilda and Guild search throughout the castle, Serilda soon makes a shocking discovery, that the Erlking may not be just looking to bring back Perchta but to make sure that they are never on the dark side of the veil again.

When a book is in a trilogy or a duology, it can be hard to impress or compete with the first book as expectations have been set high. There are few series where I would choose the second book as my favourite one. But for this duology I liked this book better than the first one. I found that the book was darker, information about Serilda and her power is revealed and there was less side story telling, which I found distracated from the overall plot of the first.

This book really picks up after the first one ends and the darkness of the first continues into this one. I found that the book got darker the farther the book went on. You know that the Erlking is cruel from the first book and after what happened to those Serilda cared about but you see even more of his cruelty in this book. What is also interesting is there are times that Meyer has the Erlking try to relate or get to know Serilda more but you never know if it is jus a game to him or a means to an end.

I found that Serilda grew up more in this book and was less annoying as a character, she just seemed smarter and beginning to learn from the mistakes that she had made in the past. What she is willing to give up in the book is quite shocking as well, and her sense of right and duty is high

I will admit, I was slightly and I mean slightly disappointed by the ending, but that did not take away my overall enjoyment of this book and duology.

If you enjoy re-tellings then I highly recommend that you check out this duology, Meyer knows how to do it right. I look forward to reading more of her re-telling especially if they are this dark.

Enjoy!!!

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