Review: Salem's Curse

Salem's Curse by Sydney Bristow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book kind of took me all over the place. Soon after starting the book I began to wonder – is this book a spinoff? Did I miss another book that set up this series? I don’t think I was missing anything (after some investigation online), but it was still a little confusing to dive in with not much explanation. Once I got the hang of what was going on, though, the story did start to take shape.

Celestina is a girl who is missing a week’s worth of her memories. During that week, apparently a lot of stuff happened that is vital to who she is/has become. She was raised in an abusive household, first with a drunk mother, then with a physically abusive grandmother. Turns out, however, that her grandmother might not have been that bad (?) and that her mother was worse than she remembers (?). Still a little confused on those parts. Oh, and she’s got magical powers, and there are vampires, and demons, and … werewolves, I think?

Somewhere along the way, while we run from drama-filled reunion to the next, we get introduced to a troubled demon who is (of course) a hottie, a vampire with hurt feelings, an estranged and possibly murderous aunt, and a spunky new friend. There’s some other characters, but at some point I had to focus on only the important parts, which was a little difficult.

The larger story is about stopping the end of the world, because isn’t it always? Some preconceived notions are thrown out the window and Celestina ends up being pretty awesome in her own right. Not sure it sends the right message that all her abuse was helpful, but that’s where we end up. Needless to say, there are tons of questions I still have, most revolving around the love interest that never got answered. Lots of questions still surround Celestina and her powers, too. As a start, I am definitely left wanting more information.


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