Curse Me Beautiful by Marie Bradford

5 Stars

The writing and editing of this novel was masterful, with no typos that I caught in the ARC version and really pretty sentence structure. The world building was masterful, with the school for wizards really coming alive. The characterization of the two protagonists was great, with both of them having terrible aspects to their personalities but the author still managing to make them deeply sympathetic to the reader. The development of the romantic relationship between these two is natural and organic, with me the reader buying into their relationship by the end. The plot and pacing was great, with me turning the pages rapidly to find out what was going to happen next. There was surprisingly little angst, considering the main protagonist being forcibly gender flipped and facing terrible bullying and *trigger warning* sexual harassment. The stakes were fairly high, but not as high as I am used to in adult fantasy and sci-fi romance where the fate of the world or universe is often at stake. However, I still thoroughly enjoyed this novel. This novel used the Enemies to Lovers trope. The world building, plot and pacing rated five stars. The characterization and development of the romantic relationship rated five stars. That means that the combined score for this novel was five stars. This novel contains a Happy Ever After ending instead of a cliffhanger, so that is a big plus to this novel. I recommend this novel to readers who enjoy paranormal bully academy romances. I will probably not buy myself a keeper copy of this novel. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

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