Arabella and the Cursed by Prince by Chelsey Noelle Review

As college has kept me busy for a long time I haven’t had as much time to read as I would like. Frustrated at my lack of progress I complained to roommate who suggested I read shorter books instead of the six-hundred-page book I was attempting. I thought this was a good idea since I was causing myself a lot of unnecessary and unwanted stress over this problem. And so, I picked up Arabella and the Cursed by Prince by Chelsey Noelle which was 191 pages long. Perhaps I should have started with the first book in the series The Frog Duke but since Beauty and the Beast is one of my two favorite fairy tales, I chose this one instead. Either way it seems that both books can be read in any order, so it doesn’t really matter.  

Arabella and the cursed prince introduces the reader to prince Levenworth who is a horrible child born to two benevolent and kind parents. He pretends to be charming in public but behind the scenes is more than just a spoiled brat. He is extremely cruel. His cruelty is shown especially to Arabella, a merchant's daughter whose parents are longtime friends of the king and queen. Arabella sees through is façade and where others do not, and this angers Levenworth. And so, the two begin playing horrible tricks on one another. One such trick was when Levenworth almost forced Arabella to eat a worm but was only stopped when a servant called for him. After that incident he started calling her the worm much to Arabella’s annoyance. Eventually the years pass by and Levenworth grows into a handsome by still cruel young man. One day at a ball celebrated in his honor he finds himself dancing with an ugly faerie who asks him to marry her. He refuses and she transforms him into a beast. Learning that he has five years to find someone to marry him or he will lose his mind and remain a beast forever, his parents set out to find a princess to help him. However, they never return, and the prince receives a letter from the fairy informing him she killed them he loses all hope. As time passes, he learns how to talk again (for when he was first cursed, he could only snort) but with the end of each passing year a new change happens causing him to look more beastly. With only invisible servants to tend to him he loses all hope. Until one day his parents' old friend the merchant arrives at his doorstep seeking financial help. With the encouragement of his servants Levenworth agrees to help him if he brings one of his daughters to serve him in forever in exchange. The merchant returns home, and his older daughter Sasha agrees to go hoping she will find a rich husband. However, Arabella knows better than to believe that the prince will be a kind master. She secretly decides she will go instead even if it means facing the cruel prince from her childhood. Find out what happens to them by reading the book yourself. 

Overall, I did enjoy not this book very much. It was okay at best but it defiantly would have benefited from being longer to give the characters more time to grow and become better people. I was at first very eager to see where Levenworth and Arabella’s relationship would go but because of the books’ short length I felt like I didn’t get to see enough of it. Or at least I didn’t feel like I saw enough of them getting along. For more than half the book they were fighting, and I wanted to see more of them developing a romantic relationship. I also wanted to see more of Levenworth’s growth from a cruel child to a kind man. I think that this is an okay read, but I could not give it more than 2.5 stars. I wouldn't recommend it unless you want a short book to kill some time and have nothing else to read.