Review: Cursed

Read 11/9/10 - 11/10/10

4 Stars: Strongly recommended

Pgs:214

This novel was exactly what I needed because I:

1. Finally threw in the towel on a three-week struggle with my previous read.

2. Wanted something fun and fast to help me fall in love with books again.

3. Was dying to read me a little Jeremy C. Shipp.

Cursed is a novel unlike any other. When the book opens, Nicholas has been slapped in the face 11 days in a row. He is expecting #12 to come from his sister. He is pretty sure that he is cursed.

He starts to question whether it is something he is bringing upon himself until he talks to his friend Cicely, who is also struggling with a strange curse of her own - an inability to let go of a tennis ball for fear that the world will end.

Together, this team of two join forces with Nicholas's blind roommate - who has an unhealthy obsession with profiling serial killers - and Abbey - a girl who answers their wanted posters for other 'cursed' people - in an effort to uncover whoever it was that did this to them.

An absolute page turner from the first to the last, Cursed hooked me with it's list-fetish narrator, who outlines almost every thought and action in a humorous 1. 2. 3. format. The author creates these perfectly fucked up, quirky, lovable characters that you can't help but root for, and delivers them to you on a plate that is overflowing with witty comments and a side of neuroses.

Jeremy C. Shipp has definitely caught my attention with this novel, and will have me quickly seeking out his others... A clever player-on-words, an active tweeter, and a man with a unique imagination, Jeremy twists the english language and knocks it to its knees. And the world really should take notice!

A great introduction into the realm of Bizarro fiction, for those who have yet to wet their feet, and a softer horror fiction for those who want to skip the screams and just get their creep on.