A cursed girl escapes death and finds herself in a magical world – but is then tested beyond her wildest imagination
Morrigan Crow is cursed. Having been born on Eventide, the unluckiest day for any child to be born, she’s blamed for all local misfortunes, from hailstorms to heart attacks–and, worst of all, the curse means that Morrigan is doomed to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday.
But as Morrigan awaits her fate, a strange and remarkable man named Jupiter North appears. Chased by black-smoke hounds and shadowy hunters on horseback, he whisks her away into the safety of a secret, magical city called Nevermoor.
It’s then that Morrigan discovers Jupiter has chosen her to contend for a place in the city’s most prestigious organization: the Wundrous Society. In order to join, she must compete in four difficult and dangerous trials against hundreds of other children, each boasting an extraordinary talent that sets them apart – an extraordinary talent that Morrigan insists she does not have. To stay in the safety of Nevermoor for good, Morrigan will need to find a way to pass the tests – or she’ll have to leave the city to confront her deadly fate.
I was simply enchanted by this world. I was addicted to reading this book, and got through today’s snow day by binge-reading it!
Morrigan is a cursed child, and boy does she know it. Everyone seems to want to remind her every single day. She is blamed for random things happening that she knows are out of her control, simply because she is a cursed child. She is also doomed to die on her eleventh birthday. Then, right as she is preparing to die, a man named Jupiter appears and offers to take her to a magical city called Nevermoore. She then learns that she is going to be allowed to join the Wundrous Society. She must compete in four trials against other children, and prove her talent. Only problem is, she doesn’t know what talent she has. Jupiter seems to dance around the subject whenever she asks. All she knows is that she doesn’t want to go back to her mediocre life, and that the Wundrous Society will give her the family she always wanted.
This book felt like the amazing middle-grade fantasy novels I used to read when I was younger. It wasn’t dumbed down, but it still had a youthful magic about it. At first I thought that it reminded me of Harry Potter, but in the end, it felt more like Chronicles of Narnia. Harry Potter may be fantasy, but it does have its points where it feels rather real. This story feels as if it takes place in a completely different world with its own secrets. Nevermoor is just…I can’t even describe it. You have to read it for yourself!
Morrigan is such a unique main character. She has been hated all her life for being “cursed,” but she was determined to have her own personality all along. Even when she was accepted into schools as a joke because she wasn’t going to actually live to attend, she still kept her chin up. If her family had supported her more, she could have even had a happy life in the semi-regular world that she lived in before Nevermoor. But instead, they treated her like a burden, and she just knew that her whole life would have been miserable. This book definitely makes fun of those tropes of “evil children.” For example, a woman saying that the girl looked at her and caused something bad to happen to her when she had just been playing on the lawn.
I know that this book is just going to get better and better because the characters aren’t even fully fleshed out yet in this book! I can’t wait to see what books two and three bring.
This book is definitely perfect for middle-grade readers looking to challenge themselves with a larger book. I wish that this series had been out when I was younger, I would have devoured these books in a matter of hours.
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 6 out of 5 stars
