Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

genre: young adult fantasy

Nyx has always known her fate: to marry the Gentle Lord and then to destroy him.  Only by destroying him can she free her land from his tyranny.  But of course, it's never that simple.  Nyx's own heart is full of a blackness that will swallow her whole if she lets it and soon the Gentle Lord himself has Nyx asking questions about both her own reality and the quest she's set her life upon. The answers will lead her to a place she can't even imagine.

This caught my attention from the third chapter. I love a Beauty and the Beast retelling and this is far deeper and darker than any I've tried.  The backstory is so fleshed out and convoluted that it made my brain work really hard (although one major plot point was obvious from the first moment I saw it, it still worked out well).  The ending was NOT was I was expecting and that's always a pleasant surprise.  With deep mythological roots, Nyx's story is really about finding peace in yourself and figuring out what is truly worth dying for.

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