By a Charm and a Curse Review

3 stars!!! I'm usually a huge fan of circus novels but unfortunately, this one just didn't do it for me. I guess I was expecting a whole lot of fantasy with exceptional worldbuilding but I just didn't get any of those things. Let me elaborate further. Firstly, the book doesn't have much worldbuilding. Yes, the author describes the acts and the atmosphere which was pretty nice but it wasn't immersive enough for me. When I hear fantasy, I expect all weirdly wonderful things but since the story has a contemporary setting, it just felt like an ordinary circus albeit with a small curse/charm thing going on. In addition, this so called charm/curse is quite rudimentarily explained and can be broken pretty easily. So this made me feel even less inclined to get invested in the story. Secondly, the MC Emma is your typical YA heroine. She makes the silliest mistakes and has the usual backstory of a girl who doesn't fit in, has moved to a new town and abandons her only best friend to get sucked into a dangerous situation. Plus, she does the usual stupid thing of kissing a strange boy to then become a "special snowflake". Moreover, I found her POV of the plot pretty boring as half of the time her narration was pretty repetitive. Ben, on the other hand, had a bit of spunk and I liked his backstory. However, he loses his own voice when he starts interacting with Emma. Their romance was very instantaneous which was another cliche. Plus, there were times in the book whether I was confused as to who was narrating because their voices are very similar. There was no real distinction. In terms of the side characters, I felt they were more well rounded and I liked reading about the various backstories. This helped the book feel a lot less one dimensional. Last but not least, the pacing of the book was not too slow which made for a quick read. The storyline was pretty straightforward and the resolution seemed pretty obvious from the very outset. However, the book does have some action and takes a few, although, not so surprising twists. I would say it was a pretty average read. I've read better YA circus themed fantasy books. I would recommend giving this one a try if you have nothing else on your TBR list and you need to pass the time.

#magic #contemporary #romance #fantasy #youngadult #JaimeQuestell