Aleksandra's Reviews > Bespelled

I created my account on NetGalley specifically to be able to request arc of Bespelled by Laura Thalassa. This book was one of my most anticipated releases of 2024 so I’m really grateful I was lucky enough for my request to be approved!

But as is often the case I’m yet again a bit disappointed by book I was so desperate to read right now.

I’m not the kind of person to make notes while reading but with Bespelled? I have few pages where I aggressively scribbled „Selene is an IDIOT”, „Selene is acting stupid”, „Selene acts like brainless bimbo”, „Selene is so gullible!” ect… So yeah… Me and Selene are not friends right now…

I do understand Memnon treated her BADLY in first book, but cut that man some slack! He had every reason to think she REALLY betrayed him. Now when he knows the truth – he GROVELS… And she still treated him as villain for most of the book.

When we got that scene of their last moments together in previous life I was heartbroken… (But it was obvious Eislyn will still be a problem in their current lifetime…)

I’m not going to lie, the criminal plot was actually boring for me. We didn’t get much backstory about Fortuna Family so even that plot is an integral part of this book, I wasn’t invested.

For me this book was about Selene acting stupid!... We got SOOOO MANY scenes with her being an idiot it’s not even funny… I was so ANGRY at her for 90% of this book (but I guess it could be interpreted as character well written – character that gives you some FEELS… but please – I really hope for some positive character development for Selene in next book, I don’t want to be THAT ANGRY again!)

But why was I so angry at her you may ask? Well, let me get you some examples… She knew she was wanted by some witch called Lia, there were killings and kidnappings across her coven university and she still lived there… she still went to celebrate Samhain! (almost all that scene was awful!).
There were more scenes like that – scenes where because of Selene stupid actions something went TERRIBLY WRONG… Because she lived by saying „caution be damned”, she almost lost Nero and Memnon was badly injured!

In my opinion that girl deserved every bad thing that happened to her and every second of pain she was in! She did that to herself! But did it teach her anything? The answer is NO.

Bespelled had some sweet moments between Selene and Memnon and Nero was being disarmingly cute but few good scenes isn’t enough for me to rate this book higher than 3/5 :(

I will read next one, but maybe I’ll try to lower my expectations and then I won’t be that disappointed.

Thank you NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Bloom Books, for granting me access to this book in exchange for an honest review.