Her father offered her up in exchange for her and her sister's birth because his wife was depressed about not bearing any children. Read moreĪ beautiful retelling of Beauty and the Beast where the girl is okay looking or something in comparison to her sister and is very scholarly and the guy is really hot but is terrifying because he rules over Thanos' makes sense when you read it.Nyx has been groomed to defeat the evil Gentle Lord. I think this story could have been so much more enjoyable of she had gone with a retelling of one tale rather than off this off the wall mashup. The land is cursed, the main character's family are simply awful and everything is so depressing and miserable that the 'happy ending' isn't really enough to counter everything that came before it. The cherry on to all of is is that everything about the world this story inhabits pretty much sucks. Imagine beauty & the beast Sophie's choice some Titan/Pandora mythology, & a very literal case of multiple personality disorder.

It felt like she was trying so hard to come up with something 'new' while also recycling old tales/mythology but instead somehow ends up a tale that's both bizarre and predictably boring. I found myself having the same issues with the authors writing as I did that first time I read her work. On one hand I was actually able to make it through the entire book which is more than I can say for where within 20 minutes of listening to the audio book I was left wondering baffled as to what the hell I had just listened to without enough curiosity to try and sort it out and continue. Once again my weakness for eye catching covers lured me in spite of my previous experience. Cruel Beauty was my second attempt with this author.

Rosamund hodge