Thank you so much to the publisher, the author, and netgalley for sending me an e-ARC to read. I gave this book four stars.

A cute read, I enjoyed this book. I would recommend it to most Young Adult readers. The characters are well written and the plot is unique

This was such a great book!

First of all, coming from an English high school where our students’ commitments to performing arts is more on the casual side, I was blown away by the facilities and and time dedicated to theatre at this school. I have no idea if it’s realistic, but it is wonderful!

Melody is hardworking and focused. She can be a bit shortsighted sometimes as her determination can come across as selfish, and she can be thoughtless to the feelings of those around her.

Her girlfriend, Rachel, breaks up with her in the middle of a performance that all of the backstage team can hear through their headphones. It’s completely humilating, and as upset as she is, the show must go on, and she must remain professional.

Convinced that the theatre is cursed, the crew make up new superstitions each year. It seems clear to everyone that Melody’s love life could be a problem, and she swears off love for the good of Les Mis. So, of course, she meets someone perfect!

Melody goes on a real journey throughout this book. She learns so much about herself and others. Her relationship with Odile is really beautiful and genuine. It grows slowly. The fact that the love curse forces them to be secretative means that they get to know each other in their own time.

I learned so much about the theatre and what goes on behind the scenes from this book. Its interesting and fun and thoughtful and witty.

I can’t believe it took me so long to read! I’m definitely going to order a physical copy for my classroom library as some of my students would love this too.

Thank you, Netgalley, for myngifted digital copy of The Love Curse of Melody Mcintyre.

I went into this with very low expectations, not gonna lie. I thought it would be okay - nothing special and sort of annoying because its about 16 year olds - and I was pleasantly surprised.

Melody seemed like a fairly mature teenager actually, which I didn't expect, and the back drop of theatre kids just living their lives was really effective. I enjoyed how the book was played out as if it was a play itself. One thing I will say is I really didn't enjoy how Mel's closest friends acted when they found out about certain things. They made out like Mel was evil. But, kids. And whatever, I could get over it.

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ Young Adult for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoy Robin Talley's writing style, The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre was such a light, fluffy and refreshing read with some hard hitting moments and it touches on some more difficult topics. I think that Talley writes LGBT characters really well and is very inclusive of various representations in her books which I always enjoy.

'The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre' is one of the cutest young adult romances ever. I adored this book and loved reading about Melody and Odile and seeing them fall in love throughout the book. This book was just a light-hearted, fluffy and adorable f/f romance set around a high school play of Les Mis.

I did feel myself getting a bit bored in the middle of this book but I feel like that was a me problem and not really the problem of the book and is probably why I gave this book 3.5/4 stars.

I am always on the lookout for more young adult f/f romances, especially ones with bisexual main characters and I feel like this is one of the best ones out there. If you loved Perfect On Paper by Sophia Gonzales or any of Robin Talley's other books then you should definitely check this one out.

Thank you to HQ for providing me with an advance copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A sweet story with a lot of teenage dramatics. Melody learns a lot with her black and white worldview being thrown into question. There’s also an interesting exploration of child stars through Odile, how everyone thinks she’s incredible and untouchable, but she just feels hopelessly detached from them all, wanting nothing more than a normal life.
I was a little disappointed in the way things ended with the curse, with everyone thinking it was fine to have blamed Melody and no-one apologising to her. Yes, she shouldn’t have lied to them, but asking her not to fall in love for a whole show, and singling her out like that, was unreasonable. I could have understood it at the start, but I expected there to be some sort of acknowledgement at the end that it was unfair of them to ask that of her, but instead everyone just says they forgive her and she doesn’t even consider how unfair it was of them to ask that of her in the first place. I think it’s because I felt like Melody needed to learn that she didn’t have to do everything, and the “curse” seemed like a representation on how too much pressure is put on her, both by herself and others, so leaving that as it was felt like it was condoning the amount of pressure Melody puts on herself throughout the book.
Overall, a cute YA romcom that I enjoyed reading. (Even if I did scoff at the idea of none of the characters in Les Mis being gay other than “some fanfiction about Grantaire”).
3.5 stars

If you like contemporary YA and musical theatre, I'm confident you'll like The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre: it's well written (as is par for the course for Talley) and enjoyable. But I fear that if musicals aren't your thing, you might struggle as it's very embedded within the world of 'theatre kids' as they prepare to put on a school show of Les Miserables. I also have to agree with other reviewers who've pointed out how bizarrely unlikeable many of the characters, including Melody, were at times, and this marred the reading experience for me.

Ein tolles, queeres Jugendbuch, das sehr viel Spaß gemacht hat. Die Charaktere sind detailliert und tiefgründig und die Geschichte ist alles andere als banal. So macht queere Literatur wirklich Spaß!

My inner theatre geek absolutely adored this book - give me all of the backstage nerdery, please! Even more so if you throw some queer romance in to the mix, and a little bit of 'real life' drama. For what is a relatively long book, I raced through this, and really enjoyed watching the romance blossom between Melody and Odile, as well as feeling the very real tension as they all endeavour to put on an epic performance. I felt Melody's stress as stage manager, for sure!

I felt like the 'love curse' part of the story sometimes got a little bit lost and was used as a bit of a crutch to move the story along in ways that didn't 100% make sense (Melody is 16... it's not like serial monogamy is a real issue for her?). And actually, I think it was strong enough as a concept and story without some of that.

That said, I really enjoyed this book - it was fun, witty and made my theatre-loving heart happy. But you might want to be vaguely familiar with the plot of Les Mis before you pick this one up...

After everything goes wrong during the school production, it's decided that Melody being in a relationship during a production is a curse. For the next production of Les Mis, Melody must stay single. Then superstar Odile Rose returns to school and Melody is suddenly finding staying single very difficult.

I really enjoyed this sweet novel of high school love and musical theatre. It was a heartwarming read about first love and friendship and I tore through it in two days.

Thanks NetGalley for an advanced copy.

I really enjoyed this book!! I'm a theatre kid at heart so having a musical production be the driving force at the centre of this story was absolutely wonderful. The details about the production process really brought this one to life for me; and the side characters were wonderfully individual.

I especially loved the format and the way it was structured like a performance, it was just a wonderful added touch and it really cemented the theatre aspect in a way that, I feel, worked really well.

Some aspects of the story felt a little cliche, and while communication issues are very prevalent in high school and theatre, I would personally have preferred for the main drama to have had something else behind it too.

I loved both the main character and the love interest and rooted for them from the very first page!!

This book is cute and cheesy and I enjoyed it! I'm not even that into theatre but it was fun to read. The sapphic romance was adorable, and was probably my favourite part of the book. I did performing arts in high school and enjoyed acting, not that I've done any acting since, but reading this showed me that the crew who do all the sound, lighting, props, costumes, etc. are awesome and I'd love to be part of that. Though I doubt I'll ever be in a theatre other than to watch shows, but I digress. The crew and cast were pretty cool (but mostly the crew), the superstitions were intriguing, and the ending was heartwarming. Very enjoyable.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre takes you on a journey with two girls working a theatre production. It chronicles their budding relationship which is lovely to witness. But also takes you behind the scenes of putting on a production and makes you feel as if you are there witnessing it all.

It's no secret that I am a fan of Robin's novels, so when The Love Curse jumped out, I knew I had to give it a go!

Let's start by saying, MUSICALS. Damn right this book has lots of references and I'm sure my husband got annoyed with me singing Les Mis a few times, but who cares? not me!

Melody is a Stage Manager at her high school, it's all she's ever dreamed off. However, rituals and curses float around the drama teens and they worry it'll impact their next big show.

You follow the drama department during their highs and lows, and of course so teen issues are thrown in there too. I did enjoy the book, but I did feel that sometimes I wanted more pace.

3.5

Mel is the stage manager for her high school theatre group. When she's working the light cues her girlfriend breaks up with her during the most difficult lighting scene. This ruins 2 minutes max of performance for the opening night, and nothing else really goes wrong. However, this causes the rest of the crew to decide that whenever Mel is in a relationship that the play/musical has more things that go wrong with it - the curse of their theatre! So clearly the solution is that Mel can't fall in love during the rehearsals and run of Les Mis in the Spring. Unfortunately, she falls harder than she ever has before for the returning Odile who's been off shooting for some Game of Thrones show. And then many unfortunate events happen to the crew, cast, and in the theatre itself....all while Mel is keeping her new found feelings a secret from the rest of the crew and cast (or trying to...).

It's enjoyable but not so memorable. Definitely my favourite contemporary of Talley's I've read so far. Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen references are at a minimum and generally eye-rolled AT rather than eye-rolling...unlike other queer theatre-loving teenage books out there.

Sure a lot of this book doesn't make sense and superstitions are silly but that's all addressed near the end of the book.

I'd recommend not reading the e-book for this as the lists and diagrams are ruined in the formatting.

I want to express my gratitude to Netgalley and HQ Young Adult to give me the chance to read and review this book.

In this novel we are introduced to a high school theater company. They have a lot of rules that they have to follow, but also they have a specific regulation for the current production. In this year it is that Melody McIntyre, the stage manager, can’t fall in love. She thinks that it’s something easy to follow, yet when Odile starts to act in the stage play, she feels that have a problem because start to have feelings for her.

This book was really interesting for the way that it is writing. The reader feels that they have a countdown on every chapter, because in the beginning you can read the days, hours or minutes until the opening of the production. Also, the different mandations or official papers to the cast and crew are included when you finish the chapters. Using this, the writer make sure that the reader will be more involved in the story.

In spite of these things, that are amazing, I feel that the narration was a little bit low, because sometimes nothing (or almost nothing) happens. Initially, I didn’t empathise with Melody, I sensed that she was a good character but a little bit egocentric. On the other hand, Odile is a mysterious character, maybe a lot mysterious, but when she is introducing you know that she is a wonderful woman with so much pressure. I love other characters like Gabby, Dom or Will. I believe that this book have a marvelous representation of LGBT character, whitout feel that all the story is based about this fact.

To sum up, Robin Talley created an original way to narrate a love story about two independent girls that have as a result a cosy reading.

This is a really fun and heartwarming contemporary romance. The high school theatre setting was an interesting one - different from any of the contemporaries I've read before. The theatre Curse was entertaining and I loved the awkwardly funny characters. The banter between characters was great and I loved the sapphic romance. A great contemporary novel, this was my first experience with Robin Talley and I'm sure it won't be my last.

A fun book with a heart. I always enjoy Robin Talley books and this was no exception. It was an enjoyable high school story in which people's sexuality was no big deal. The storyline following the rehearsals for the school musical was so full of detail that I wanted to be able to see the play for myself! Mel was a competent but flawed character who, as any 17 year old, still needed guidance from her parents and teachers. The love story was written beautifully with the slow acceptance that yes, she did have a crush on Odile, and then that Odile might actually like her back. The rush of teenage love, where nothing else mattered, came across strongly and I was rooting for them to work out their problems by the end. A great book if you want low-key peril and a sweet sapphic love story. Thoroughly entertaining and easy to read, it kept my attention all the way through and I couldn't wait to get to read the next chapter.

<b>*4.5 Stars*</b>

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre is a YA romance about - you guessed it - Melody McIntyre.
Melody is the stage manager at her school. In the middle of the fall play Premiere, her girlfriend makes a scene and breaks up with her while the entire teams hears it and it also causes her to mess up the lights she is in charge of. (I'm still angry about it tbh)
Anyway, since it's communally known that the school theater is cursed, the crew team decides that Melody and her frequent relationships is the problem, cause things seem to go wrong when she's in a relationship during the play and that, for the spring performance, the counter curse should be that Melody doesn't date. Then, they inform her of it and she somehow agrees not to fall in love with anyone. Sounds easy? Yeah, not so much... Especially when rising actress Odile Rose shows up and somehow seems interested in Melody? Melody can't quite believe it...

Anyway, I really liked this book. It read it so fast, I just could not stop. I basically read it in one night. I really loved Melody and fell for her hard, even when she drove me mad. I loved being thrown into the theater department, especially in the crew part of it. It's rare that we get to read about this side of things and it was so good. I really loved Odile and Gabby (most of the time) and Dom, the secondary characters were really on point.
I also loved to hate Nick and some of the other actors, I actually felt like I was part if the crew... The only reason I didn't rate this 5 stars is that I'm still pissed about a couple things. And some things were just too not okay to me and some characters really should have apologized and didn't. I like apologies. (Except when I owe them to people ofc...)

So yeah, great book, I'm just annoying!