The Calendar Girls is a monthly blog event that was created by Melanie at MNBernard Books, and Flavia at Flavia the Bibliophile, and is now hosted by Adrienne at Darque Dreamer Reads, and Katie at Never Not Reading. It was inspired by the 1961 classic song by Neil Sedaka and created to ignite fun bookish discussions among readers and bloggers.
So, just like the song, each month a new theme is chosen (participants will get to vote between two choices), and participating bloggers get to choose their favorite book within the theme, or the book they think best fits the theme, to talk about in a blog post on the first Monday of each month.
For today’s post, the theme and my selection are:
Pumpkin Lanterns:
A Book That Lit Your Way Out of a Reading Slump!:
WINNER:
A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer
Check out A Curse So Dark and Lonely on Goodreads
Fall in love, break the curse.
Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year, Prince Rhen, the heir of Emberfall, thought he could be saved easily if a girl fell for him. But that was before he turned into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. Before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.
Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, Harper learned to be tough enough to survive. When she tries to save a stranger on the streets of Washington, DC, she’s pulled into a magical world.
Break the curse, save the kingdom.
Harper doesn’t know where she is or what to believe. A prince? A curse? A monster? As she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what’s at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
I tend to get into reading slumps a lot. But they’re not always big, month-long reading slumps. Sometimes they’re a smallish 2-week reading slump. Or a genre-specific reading slump. So yeah, they happen a lot, but I always bounce back when I find the right book for me at that time. Often, a good contemporary romance does the trick. But today I focused on fantasy books that helped got me out of reading slumps. And the most recent one was definitely A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer, which saved me in August when I only read 1 other book and DNF’ed quite a few as well
Let me first say that this A Curse So Dark and Lonely is by far THE BEST Beauty and the Beast retelling I ever read (that’s right, move over ACOTAR. Not you ACOMAF, I still love you, but you’re not really a BatB retelling anyway…). Anyway, this book is an amazing and fresh take on the tale as old as time that mixes up urban and epic fantasy, has a bad-ass disabled heroine, a swoon-worthy “beast” and a villain you’ll love to hate. BUT. BUUUT. For some reason I thought this was a standalone. And now it turns out it’s not and I have to wait until January for the sequel? NO FAIR! I feel so betrayed. But also really, very, extremely excited to get to this sequel!
What’s a book that lit your way out of a reading slump?
I wasn’t a fan of A Curse So Dark and Lonely. I feel like a black sheep because everyone loved it so much but it just didn’t compare to the awesomeness of some of Brigid’s other books. Still wanna read the sequel though…
Usually when I’m in a slump, I reach for a reread, but reading an entirely new or different genre is a great idea, too!