You Are Cursed

by Sarah Cummins

You are Cursed is the debut novella by Sarah Cummins, a fragmented tale of a teenager tormented by receiving a cursed image in their DMs. Told through journal entries, we follow our narrator on a troubled odyssey through adult pressures and unstable emotions, all the while dodging the vicissitudes of cursed life and the vagaries of their online peers.

Genres: American

98 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2026

Reviews

[Avery]

I will probably spend some more time with this and maybe write a longer review. But for now I will say that here Sarah has crafted a deeply human portrait of what it was like to be an isolated teen on the internet in the 2010s.

[Lis]

I went back and looked at the shit i was writing in my notes app in 2017 and it's crazy how much this book gets across those feelings. This is literally what it was like... It's meaningful to me that this exists and that it's this good because these r the kinds of things i usually am inclined to forget or move on from but have to admit deeply shaped me... Those were my Formative Years lowkey...

[Bill]

It felt to me like an actual teenager wrote this. I was 100% taken by the main character. I found it relatable to my teen years, and I think many others will, but that isn't the reason I felt taken. Social media has a sinister quality that is hard to capture without being distorted into horror or slapstick, but I think You Are Cursed reaches the top registers of realism on this point.

[Kian B.]

Made me laugh made me cry. And I promise it’s not because I saw my name. ‎سارا ‎زنده باد

[Steph Boulding]

You Are Cursed was exhilarating and I couldn't put it down until I was done. Ms. Cummins' writing is so in conversation with what it is to be a lonely weird teenager online that the book feels incredibly real the whole time.

[Zuza]

Sarah is effortlessly very funny and skilled and it was a treat to read her work, see this specific way in which the narrator tries to navigate feelings of alienation and confusion. The Internet backdrop, discussions of 'Moz' and especially DEMON lingo were entertaining, but it's the timeless themes that really got me, struggles expressed here in a way that's unique and creative. It's the idea of already (by definition?) being distanced from everything you produce, no matter tears or words, no end to the spiral of introspection except going out into the world and opening up to its good and bad. At least that's what I want to believe.

Take a chance on it, you'll love it. I'm only giving it four stars because I want Sarah to keep writing forever and publish much, much more. I hope that makes sense outside my head and does not sound too much like a curse. At least not the bad kind.

[Mc Tang]

took a chance on it and loved it. pretty good especially for a first book! i always love a writer who respects my time and tells a story in a direct way. hope to see more from you soon!!

[chloe]

All too real if you've ever had experience as/with a depressed teenager with too much isolated screen time circa 2016-2018...constant flashbacks to keeping a Google Docs diary in the middle of ninth-grade health class...everyone was posting crazy...you had to be there! If you weren't, trust that it was a lot like the book. Sarah channels this voice so incisively that it nearly feels invasive to read. I had to keep putting it down because I was reminded of seeing girls cry-type on their finstas and thinking "wow you're going through so much and I don't think I should be seeing this." But it also kept making me laugh because all of that was kind of silly in retrospect. Girl we should be studying for Mrs. Yakabowski's honors earth science exam!

Wouldn't it be embarrassing if someone noticed the heart-wrenching pathos in the subtext of your non-sequitur ironyposting and didn't even say anything about it. You cannot imagine a life more tragic...This is basically what it was all like <3

[Sarah Cummins]

This was actually good af