This was really fun with a side of being serious and tackling serious issues like most Robin Talley books. However, this was probably my least favourite of the ones I have read, it just wasn’t for me!

Enjoyable sapphic YA rom-com which as a bonus has stressed out theatre kids (I remember those days) and a musical production of Les Miserable. This was fun.

I am not sure how I managed to not find out about this one until after it had been released because I would have most definitely have pre ordered but it definitely lived up to all my expectations and hopes and dreams. Mel is my ! teenage sefl in a book form, although she is more open about her sexuality! This is bisexual representation done perfectly! People just are who they are and its not a major plot point. If your a musicals geek like me, you'll love this

Melody McIntyre, ambitious Stage Manager at Beaconville High School, intends to put on the most perfect production of Les Mis. Her last production wasn't bad, but was hit by yet another branch of the theatre department curse. True, some of that may have been her own fault, after neglecting her girlfriend for weeks before the performance, but it was probably the curse.

So, at the tech crew's insistence, Melody swears off falling in love for the next production. But she didn't bet on the budding young 'ingenue' Odile being part of the next production. Which will bring all of Mel's faith about the theatre curse, and the role of actors and crew, into question.

First off - I get that theatre kids/adults/people can be superstitious. It's one of the fun parts of that kind of work. But at what point did anyone think 'oh, we can't actually prevent someone from falling in love, we shouldn't demand that, how silly of us.' Well, at no point apparently, as that's exactly what the crew demand that Mel does. And she goes along with it, as she wants what's best for her precious theatre.

I really enjoyed the level of theatre-immersion in this book. But quite honestly found it frightening that students could be so committed to the theatre as they are in this book. Every moment and every penny is spent on the most ambitious set design, costumes and lighting. Every hour is spent there - I can only presume they're all failing their courses. Is this just an American thing? Or am I just not that passionate about theatre? I loved the passion that came through in Camp for theatre, but this was ... intense.

I love Les Mis, know the story and references, and have enough general theatre knowledge. But if you didn't ... I think you could find that whole massive area of the story quite inaccessible. Not to mentioning finding the rivalry between cast and crew silly and immature.

And Mel ... Mel is not a particularly good person. She's authoritative without leadership, selfish in her pursuits and not prepared to admit that she could be wrong about anything. She's also selfish with other peoples' emotions. I'm not convinced that that makes her a good main character.

And, there's this big thing about her having had lots of short relationships - at 16 - before finally falling properly in love. Is it just me, or is that a very young age to be slut-shamed at?

In all, I enjoyed the story. I enjoyed the theatre. I enjoyed the f/f/ romance and I enjoyed the diverse cast. But there were quite a few things that didn't quite gel for me.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book I read by Robing Talley and I really enjoyed it. I've never been in a theater group nor seen the musical Les Misérables (read the book though) but I still could follow the story quite well. I think the author showed really well how everything works backstage during a theater production and I enjoy this as much as the
romance between Melody and Odile!
The only thing that bothered me a little was all the superstitions and "curses", I thought that was a bit over the top but it might be exactly that crazy in a real theater setting.

All in all I enjoyed the book and can recommend it to anyone who likes YA romance. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Thank you to the publisher who provided me with an e-copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Robin Talley’s books are always a must read for me – they are quite diverse, but I’ve enjoyed them all.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre is a light, fun read - it’s basically a high school rom-com - which lacks the wider social commentary of many of Robin’s other books. That’s fine, because it’s a really engaging read, centring around a high school production of Les Miserables for which the eponymous Melody is the stage manager. Superstitions abound, and when Mel’s girlfriend breaks up with her during a production of Romeo and Juliet, distracting her and almost wrecking the show as a result, her fellow crew members decide that Melody’s love life is bad news for theatrical success.

She’s happy enough to promise not to fall in love for the run of the next show, this staving off any possible curse. But she hasn’t reckoned on Odile Rose...

I loved all the behind-the-scenes details about a theatre production, and things like the mistrust between the cast and the crew felt very believable. I was rooting for Mel throughout, and for the show to be a success.

A great read.

I read this for a blog tour.

I loved, loved, loved this book. Be still my theatre nerd, bisexual heart. Honestly, it's freaking adorable. Funny, silly and very realistic to the stress of putting on a show.

If this book had been around when I was a teen theatre geek, it would have been my go-to read. I loved the characters, Melody and her friends are so charming and snarky and funny.

The relationship between Melody and Odile is sweet and romantic, their sneaking around less so, but we all make mistakes when we're young.

The triumphant staging of Les Mis is a joy, when all the disasters of rehearsal (as any theatre kid knows, a terrible dress makes for a great run) finally come together, and if you can get through this book without breaking into One Day More, you're dead inside (and as someone who is dead inside, I mean really dead inside).

Genre: YA Fiction/LGBTQIA+

The Gist: A bunch of superstitious theatre students put on a performance of Les Miserables.

Short Review: A delightful young adult fiction that celebrates the love of theatre, falling in love and the growing up.

Long Review: Aspiring stage manager Melody McIntyre promises her crew that she won’t fall in love during their upcoming performance of Les Miserables because they are worried that it is bringing on a theatre curse. However, when popular student Odile Rose starts showing interest in Melody McIntyre her resolve begins to crumble. However, when strange and unusual things begin to happen during the performance rehearsals Melody starts to believe that the curse is real.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre is a great read. It doesn’t try to be anything other than it is. A fun theatre romp that looks at the love lives of teenagers. One aspect of the novel that I really appreciated is that LGBTQIA+ relationships are central to the plot however Robin Talley does not emphasise this as an issue. I think more YA novels need to have non-heteronormative relationships at the heart of their stories without it being the main point. It shows that LGBTQIA+ relationships are the norm. By taking away what she my see as an issue Robin Talley has moved the goalposts to where they should be for other authors writing fiction with LGBTQIA+ relationships at the heart of it.

A fantastic read. Be warned though, you will be singing the soundtrack to Les Miserables for days afterwards - I don’t see how that is a bad thing.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre by Robin Talley is available now.

For more information regarding Robin Talley (@robin_talley) please visit www.robintalley.com.

For more information regarding HQ (@HQStories) please visit www.hqstories.co.uk.

Such an enjoyable, fun book to read, the story of Melody, stage manager of the high school play Romeo and Juliet, who messes up the light cues, when her girlfriend breaks up with her in the middle of the play. Everyone is therefore convinced the theatre is cursed and that Melody can't date anyone during their next production of Les Mis. The book follows the challenges, accidents and romances that inevitably happen as the high school puts on one of the most ambitious musicals ever. With lots of detailed knowledge about the elements that go into putting on a show and especially being a stage manager which add to the believability of the story. Some of the formatting didn't work well, which I am sure they will fix for the ebook edition but maybe get an actual book instead. As you would expect from Robin Talley this is an engaging story, told well, with an interesting set up and believable characters, can't really go wrong with a mostly LGBT cast putting on a musical.

With thanks to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for a review.

This is very different in terms of style than the books I’m usually reading, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless. I found the writing to be refreshing and perhaps that’s due to it being YA, but it’s definitely also down to the writer.

Melody is the stage manager for the performing arts productions at her high school. She’s known as a serial monogamist, even as a junior. Like most people involved in theatre she follows a number of superstitions and her crew manages to convince her that for the sake of their productions she needs to be single or the curse will strike again.

Odile is the school success story. She’s already been to Broadway, featured on some TV shows and is up for a movie. She returns to school for her senior year, adding a certain star quality to the school musical.

The majority of the book explores the things that take place in order to put on a musical - in this case Les Miserables. I love musicals, did perform in them at school, but have managed to not somehow not see Les Mis, so some of the references went over my head a little bit - but it didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the narrative.

Both the narrative surrounding Mel and Odile falling for each other, and the storyline of the curse and the production itself work really well, especially when they intertwine. Naturally as the book centres on a group of teenagers there are some moments of drama but none of it feels out of place or overblown.

All of the characters, even the bit part ones, fit in the narrative and despite the large ensemble I was able to keep track of who was who - which is an achievement on Talley’s part as far as I’m concerned.

It’s a longer book than I was expecting, but I still read it one sitting as it became quite the page turner and was very disappointed when it finished.

I received an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I've never read anything by the author before so wasn't sure what to expect, however I found this rather enjoyable. It was easy to read, easy to follow and I finished it quickly which was a bonus.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre by Robin Talley was exactly what I needed after a bit of a reading slump.

I’ve only read one other book by the author – Pulp – which I really loved, so when I saw the opportunity to join the Blog Tour for The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre I just had to. Especially, being someone who absolutely adores Theatre, I really couldn’t resist a LGBTQ+ YA RomCom set in the theatre department of a High School.

I’m not going to lie, I really left this one until the last possible minute to read, because due to this pandemic my ADHD and Anxiety have been all over the place. I’ve started so many books in the past couple of months, but I just couldn’t block it down. However, I gave my word that I will be part of the Blog Tour so many weeks ago and one thing that gets me going it’s the fear of disappointing people.

With this in mind, on Sunday night I decided to pick up this book and I’m glad I did because I couldn’t stop reading until I was done!

Not sure if it was the fact that I’ve been missing theatre so much since this cursed pandemic started or that it has the cutest f/f love story, but The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre was the book that I really needed right now. (So, thank you past Ana for saying yes to this blog tour!)

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre by Robin Talley, plays on theatre superstitions. Any theatre geek knows how you should not wish Good Luck but instead say Break a Leg, and how you should not mention Macbeth in a theatre (unless it’s during the performance of said play). If you disrespect the superstitions, really bad things can happen to those working in the theatre. So everyone, even the non-believers, usually respect the superstitions. Unless your name is Nick the Dick…

What I also loved about the book, was how it was divided like a play, by Acts and then with scene heads as a way to represent a new chapter. The writing was a bit more simple from the one from Pulp, but I think with how theatre techie it is, the simplicity actually made the the story flow so much better.

Melody, our main character, isn’t the instant likeable character, at least not for me. (I wonder if it was due to our difference of opinions when it comes to liking actors and her Musical Theatre preferences! ahah) But, she really grows on you and I love how she knows what she loves and just works hard for it. Maybe a bit too hard, but what teenager doesn’t just go overboard with something they’re passionate about? I sure did!

I think some of the lessons that you can get from Melody’s story is that the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return, and that one can’t just throw away their shot.

This book actually made me shed a few tiers. It could be because I’m emotionally misérable since this pandemic started, but I like to think it was because I actually started to relate to Melody and her love story. It was spot on what I need to read right now, and I’m so happy I had the pleasure to be part of the Blog Tour.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre by Robin Talley, is perfect for fans of Leah On the Offbeat and Musical Theatre geeks who also like Pitch Perfect and Glee. Out this Thursday!

I requested this book because of how much I'd loved Music From Another World, and I wasn't disappointed. The premise alone was enough to hook me - theatre nerds falling in love??? I was in two school theatre productions, tech once and acting/writing once, and the tech part was definitely my favourite. Anyway, I loved everything about this book, from the detailed technical theatre, to the teenage drama, the romance, the pacing, the writing...This book was pure delight from start to end. I loved Melody, who reminded me very much of myself (organised and stressed out? check!) and I loved seeing her and Odile come together through their love of theatre. The ending was perfect - I don't usually like big public declarations (in either IRL or fiction) but here it made a lot of sense and fit the characters perfectly, so I was essentially squealing into a pillow the whole time.

Perfect pick me up, lighthearted, fun, with appropriate amounts of teenage angst and drama (which is to say: a lot, but not overwhelmingly so).

I think having never been involved in a big theatre production made this a tricky read for me. Dialogue heavy, the story dragged a lot and honestly I found it tricky to get behind the characters.

What I did like was the romance - but the love interest was so over the top British that I just cringed.

Not awful but not great, overall.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre is a YA queer novel by Robin Talley. I do not read a large amount of YA, but as a big fan of Musical Theatre I was keen to read this!

The story follows high school stage manager, 16 year old Melody, who has been in love more times than you can count. Big on theatre superstitions, the crew believe that Melody’s love-life is causing a curse on the theatre and consequently she cannot fall in love before or during the Spring musical- Les Mis. Enter Odile Rose, the Senior who has starred on Broadway. . .

I won’t go into too many details about the plot itself as it is readily available, but if you’re a fan of Theatre/Musical Theatre this could well be for you!

I will be honest and admit that I have mixed feelings about this book. My main issue was that Melody wasn’t very likeable to me and quite annoying. I appreciated her confidence in her bisexuality and role as stage manager, but she was a poor friend and lied to everyone throughout and never seemed to grow from that. I felt sorry for her though as she seemed to shoulder a lot of blame for things that weren’t her fault and some of her friends were also not great- I guess that makes it more realistic! Mel and Odile’s relationship was sweet, but I do wish that we had seen more of them.

There was a lot that I loved about this book though. Talley referred to the MT fandom a lot as well as cast recordings and many other musicals and I loved that it was so focussed on theatre. Naturally as Les Mis was the Spring musical this was the focus and there was a *lot* of detail around the characters, stage direction, costuming and songs which I really appreciated but if you aren’t especially interested in MT then I imagine that the terminology could be more difficult to follow at times. I also loved the format of the book and how it was split into Acts, Intermission and included a cast list! I also thought that there was great queer rep throughout (including Mel having two dads) and that the off-stage drama wasn’t homophobic.

I'd give this 3.5-4*.

Many thanks to HQ for providing me an advanced copy and including me on their blog tour.

BOOK REVIEW: The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre by Robin Talley

3 stars

After reading Robin Talley's "Music from another world", I was really excited to read this book! A queer romance based on a school production of Les Miserables? What's not to like?! Unfortunately for me, quite a bit...

Firstly the things I enjoyed. This was a fun book, it made me smile and I did enjoy reading it.
I haven't read a YA book so focused on theatre (especially backstage) before so that was really interesting. Also I adore Les Miserables so I enjoyed all the references and could picture the set and hear the songs in my head. I also loved that there was a bi lead female who wasn't afraid to be herself and has two gay Dads. There isn't any homophobia in the book from any of the characters which was a breath of fresh air.

What I didn't enjoy was how over the top alot of it was. Firstly our lead female Melody is 16 years old yet she has been in love more times than she can count?! Just...no. I also felt there was a lack of chemistry between Melody and Odile (her love interest).
Alot of the drama was very high school, which I realise they are in but to make a YA book enjoyable for more ages, you have to have a character that everyone can relate to and a story that isn't too immature. Melody's problems in general just felt OTT and really blown out of proportion.
If you haven't seen or read Les Miserables, you may get a little lost in this book. Also I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed it if I didn't have an interest in theatre and musicals. The idea of a curse of the theatre was interesting at first but it got really silly. I have much more to say about that but I don't want to give away any spoilers!
The character development of the main characters was also really lacking and there were so many side characters, I often got a little lost with all the names!

Overall it was a cute queer YA read but the fun was overshadowed by alot of ridiculous drama.

Please note that I was #gifted this book in exchange for an honest review.

Robin Talley is fantastic is bringing the world sapphic love stories and that’s what I presumed Love Curse was going to be, but I’m not sure it really is. Whilst the romance between Melody, the stage manager for her school’s production of Les Mis and the actress in one of the leading roles, plays a large role in the story, I would argue its more about the production and theatre group as a whole. As someone with a casual interest in musicals I found the references to Broadway shows fun to begin with – unfortunately for me it got tiring quite quickly. The characters, especially Mel as the first-person narrator of the novel, are unashamedly and utterly devoted to their show.

Largely, I found the characters in Love Curse okay – they served their purpose and I didn’t have any strong feelings about them either way. The two core young women at the heart of the story – Melody and Odile – do stand out amongst the array of students involved in the production. Melody is stubborn (almost frustratingly so) and completely unashamed of who she is. It’s refreshing to read about a character who doesn’t internally shame herself for the number of relationships she’s had or the fact she wants to follow a creative career path rather than an academic one. But I found it difficult to settle into her narrative voice – at times towards the beginning of the story she felt like a younger narrator than she is. Odile, the rising acting star, felt genuinely quite charming and I really enjoyed her as a character.

Generally speaking, Love Curse is a story about a group of young people coming together on the verge of a disaster however there was one aspect of the premise which irked me from the beginning. The “love curse” of the title ties to the superstitions surrounding theatre – Mel’s friends believe that whenever she is in a relationship, their show goes wrong. Long story short, they agree that Mel is not to fall in love over the course of their production of Les Mis. If Mel had made identified the connection herself and made a kind of internalised agreement with herself, I would have probably been more on board. But there was something about her friends confronting her about it which felt genuinely unpleasant and I wish Mel reacted in a different way. I understand that the cast and crew are a superstitious bunch but that just felt like they were crossing a line.

Overall, The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre was a chaotic and fun journey through the process of putting on a theatre production. The vast array of characters at times blurred into one another but the plot surrounding superstitions really carried the novel through. Whilst the romance felt a little underdeveloped it was great to see Robin Talley deliver on another sapphic love story. It’s definitely a fun book with moments of seriousness and packed to the brim with drama.

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre follows Melody whose the stage manager for her school’s musical productions, following the outcome of the last production the crew come up with a superstition that whenever Melody is in love the production ends up a disaster – this year she sets herself the goal of staying away from love.

The book was such a fun read, I loved the concept of the book – it was so entertaining and I liked the way the book was structured and how it linked to musical productions and made me feel connected to the story. I really enjoyed the first half, it was light-hearted and built up the story really well – I liked how the various side characters were introduced and I enjoyed reading about the build up to the production. I did like Melody as the narrator, as the stage manager she deals with a lot and is involved with dealing with all the issues but I also like her confidence and how unapologetic she is about herself even when people slut-shamed her – she has a lot of exes which is something people make jokes about/use against her but I did want her to stand up for herself more especially towards the end when everybody was interfering and speaking about her personal/love life. I really enjoyed reading about the behind the scenes of what goes on/how a production comes about and Melody is really passionate about her role which makes everything more interesting to read.

The second half is more fast paced but I did feel like at times it did drag on and that the ending resolve was a bit rushed. I did want the curse/superstition to be addressed more near the ending because it is such a big deal to the students and the ending does not seem to address it much or really wrap it up. I did like Odile and her relationship with Melody, it was very quick but I liked their interactions together but I did not like how Odile was written. Her character felt a bit flat, she had a lot going on in her personal life and was constantly hiding her true self but I felt like Melody idolised her a bit too much. She saw her as being this perfect person all the time and made it hard to connect to her character.

4/5

I finished The Love Curse a few weeks back, and still have moments where the characters pop back to me - mainly the supporting characters, if I'm honest, but still a sign of a good book, in my opinion.

The premise is simple: theatre at a high school seems to be cursed, and while the curse has been around for decades, the current crew of the theatre production lay blame at the feet of their Stage Manager, Mel. If Mel can only stay single for the duration of the their production. the curse will stay away.

And so begins the 'spot who Mel might fall in love with' plot line!

Now, I grew up in an amatuer dramatics society, so while I didn't have the whole school element of this tale, I did have font memories of the tech box, of the dressing rooms, of standing side of stage - which might exlpain why I <3 this book as much as I did.

It's a great YA novel, with heavy Glee vibes - my one criticism is the forced Us and Them between crew and cast. - which hasn't been the case in my experience as they are two very different skill sets, but then, this is highschool afterall!

I really needed a light-hearted book this week, and Robin Talley’s ‘The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre’ was exactly that. It was a nice, easy and quick read, and I have enjoyed the story, even though it had been predictable and cheesy at moments.

‘The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre’ follows Melody, a stage manager of the high school play. The cast and crew of Melody’s high school theatre group strictly believe in superstitions – every year they choose one curse, a superstition, and counter-curse in order to prevent the disaster happening. Now, they are preparing to prepare musical, ‘Les Misérables’, and Melody couldn’t be happier to be named a stage manager – the only problem? The crew decided that her love life is cursed, and in order to make the performance work, Melody has to stay single and not fell in love. Enter Odile, a gorgeous and talented actress that Melody is definitely developing a crush on.

While I found some parts of the books overly simplistic and characters a bit too dramatic at moments – but then again it’s theatre – I had fun reading the book, especially as the narrative was framed around one of my favourite musicals. Overall, ‘The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre’ has a nice flow and pacing, with the exception being the middle section of the book where the dialogue completely took over, which felt unnecessarily overwhelming.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a nice YA romance.