Alright, I’m gonna be honest with you guys; I have no idea how I feel about Curse of the Were-Woman by Dawn Carrington.
I might like it? But I might also hate it. I don’t know.
To help me work through my feelings, I’m gonna summarize the book for you (warning: spoilers.)
We start off with our nameless narrator, your typical college guy, complaining about his girlfriend. They’re long distance, she never visits him, she doesn’t make time for him when he visits, she gets “slutty” when she drinks, etc. Fast forward a few days to a Halloween party at the narrator’s apartment. Girlfriend’s best friend, the unbearably sexy Sara, tells the story of the were-woman, a descendent of the succubae who feed off of the male orgasm until she drains all of the “masculine energy” from her victim and he becomes a were-woman. The narrator is intrigued.
Later, Sara reveals that Slutty Girlfriend Nicole is cheating on Nameless Narrator. Narrator is angry, and Sara gives him a massage that ends, predictably, in a blowjob. She then reveals that she is in fact a were-woman. Narrator is horrified. He never wants to see her again. Sara leaves in tears.
But then Narrator can’t stop thinking about Sara. He decides that continuing to have sex with her will be fine, as long as they’re careful. They’re not careful. Narrator becomes a were-woman. She loves it. Fini.
What I loved: the mythology. Sara begins by telling the story of Lilith, the first wife of Adam, banished from Eden for being equal to man. Lilith makes a deal with the devil and becomes the first succubus, a lady demon who seduces men and fucks them until they die. Time passes, succubae become more numerous, the church begins to seek them out and kill them. The succubae summon the devil and alter Lilith’s original deal somewhat: instead of killing men, they’ll just turn them into women. That’s better, right? In any case, it’s apparently enough to get the church off their collective back.
The whole mythos is absurd, and I love it. It’s exactly like the vampire/werewolf story I tried to write in my dreamy teenage years (this was pre-Twilight, believe it or not).
What I didn’t love: considering that this story is written by a woman, I was surprised by the number of times other women were written of as “sluts.” On the very first page, the narrator refers to his own girlfriend as a slut. Then in the party scene, the narrator makes a point to note the “slutty” girls and their “slutty” costumes that his roommates invited, and the next morning his roommate brags about banging “one of the slutty girls.” He can’t even remember which one: “The witch. No wait, I think it was the maid.” Nice.
At this point, I’m hoping that the narrator is going to become a woman and have some kind of life-altering realization when he experiences life as a woman first-hand, but that theory pretty much went out the window when Sara made a point of saying that she is “not like other girls”—and she doesn’t mean it in the “I’m a were-woman” way. This erotic story doesn’t seem very sex positive, and I can’t groove with that.
Finally, the sex: there are only about two, maybe two and a half sex scenes in this story, and they are…okay. They’re kind of strangely technical. The words “penis” and “vagina” are used a lot, as opposed to words you’ll find more often in erotica: “cock,” “pussy,” you know. All in all, I’ve definitely read hotter sex scenes.
Overall, I would give Curse of the Were-Woman a 6.5/10. It is a fun, interesting story, but it could definitely have been better.
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