A review by thebookberrie
The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre by Robin Talley

3.0

When I finished this I was like yeah!! Finally a Robin Talley book that I can rate more than three stars!! But now I'm not so sure??

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre is about high school stage manager Melody. After getting dumped on opening night, the show ends in catastrophe. Believing she's cursed, Mel swears off any romance until after her school's upcoming production of Les Mis is over. But Mel didn't count on Odile, rising star in the acting world and spring performance lead. Now Mel's plan is to try hard not to fall in love.

This was cute. The school play parts reminded me a lot of [b:Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda|19547856|Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Simonverse, #1)|Becky Albertalli|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1402915678l/19547856._SY75_.jpg|27679579] which is always a plus and Mel and Odile were very very cute together. But the whole curse thing and how everyone treated Mel about it was so ??? gross???

They go out of their way to blame her for everything even when she has literally nothing to do with it, like someone getting injured. The cURsE beWArE oF tHE cURsE. She's a teenage girl who falls in love too easily and they slut shame her too many damn times and was half ass defended once. Then there is all this cast / crew hate and it was so pointless. Then I actually have no idea anything about Les Mis so I was??? because apparently you need knowledge of that to understand half of this rip.

Mel spends a lot of time lying to her friends and hiding a relationship and it was lame. Then she even lies to Odile and it was just too many layers of Mel lying to everyone. It didn't even seem like there was a point to all of this?? She was not dating because of a superstition and they LITERALLY acted like she killed their new kitten right in front of them. She was messy as hell and lied but they were so annoying in how they blamed her for every single thing. It didn't even seem like they were even mad she lied, just that she was dating. She never calls THEM out for being shitty and just endlessly apologizes for falling in love and that was even lamer.

Also nitpick but she was a completely different character in the beginning when she was rabid about having a perfect play when she later just... doesn't care and spends half the time sneaking around with Odile. I mean I support but what happened to the character that got dumped because she cared TOO MUCH about the play?

But this book was cute when it was cute and sapphic stage manager x actress was adorable. This is probably my favorite Robin Talley book that I've read but I'm still not there yet.