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Book Review: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Title: Cruel Beauty

Author: Rosamund Hodge

Series: Cruel Beauty Universe

Publication Date: January 28th 2014

Page Count:352

Genre: YA, high fantasy, romance, magic

Format: Paperback

Source: Read it in bookstore (Indigo)

Rating:

SYNOPSIS (FROM GOODREADS):

Graceling meets Beauty and the Beast in this sweeping fantasy about one girl’s journey to fulfill her destiny and the monster who gets in her way-by stealing her heart.

Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she’s ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex’s secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

MY THOUGHTS:

This book was a lot better than I expected. A lot.

I read this in an Indigo store in Toronto, because I wasn’t sure if I should buy this book on Andrick (my Kindle) and the sample was ridiculously way too short. The reviews were extremely mixed, and the whole ‘it’s based on Beauty and the Beast idea’…

To me, it just seemed like another replicate to The Book of Ivy. And for that duo series, I absolutely loved the first book, but for some reason not so much the second.

So yeah, this book didn’t exactly start off with a good impression from me.

I’m not going to go into this whole speech of me praising and worshiping this book’s story line. Because like they admitted themselves: it’s mainly inspired by another story.

However, I still find myself vastly enjoying this book because the characters were on point, the story (especially the ending) was kind of confusing but still extremely sophisticated, and of course: THE HATE LOVE RELATIONSHIP!!!

I don’t think it is (or should be) book of the year, but I definitely really enjoyed it, so to me, I’ll give this book 5 stars ?

#Fairytales #Magic #Romance #HighFantasy #YA #HateLoveRelationship #Royalty #Demons

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