Mundie Moms

Saturday, January 25, 2014

CRUEL BEAUTY by Rosamund Hodge, Book Review


By: Rosamund Hodge
Published by: Harper Teen
To Be Released on: 1.28.14
Source: book from publisher to review
Rating: 5 Stars, I Loved It!
Pre-Order From: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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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.


A beautiful crafted debut! Cruel Beauty is a mesmerizing fairytale fantasy rich in Greek Mythology, enchanting romance, danger, and heartbreaking betrayal. I couldn't get enough of this book.

Cruel Beauty is a spellbinding story that had me rooting on the story's heroine, and had me falling in love with the beast she was destined to kill. Can I just say WOW, and leave my review at that? For once I am totally speechless on what else I can say. Hodge's writing is just WOW. This story is just WOW. It's nothing that I was excepting and ended up being everything I love in a book. I can honestly say, this is unlike anything I've read, and I've read a lot of books. It's both beautifully told and darkly alluring. I love it when an author can bring something completely unique to the YA world, and this book is definitely that.

This is a story that had me rooting on the main character, Nyx, from the get go and made me fall in love with the Beast (demon in this story), Ignifex, she was sent to kill. Like all well written fairytales/mythology stories, destiny has a way of interfering, and things don't go quite as planned. Nyx is AWESOME! Seriously! She has many of the same qualities I love about my other favorite heroines. She is strong willed, has nerves of steel, and is all around butt kicking girl. This girl holds her own, and yet behind all the toughness is a girl who's very much broken. Her family relationships are not only the cause of that, but are also what drive her. Not to mention it's her Father's bargain he made long ago with the Demon Lord who put her in the position she finds herself in. I loved seeing how much her character evolved over the course of the book. She was easy to emotionally connect to.

Oh Ignifex. I wish I could say he was nothing that I was excepting, but part of him was. Well, at first he was nothing I was excepting. The more I got to know him, I realized that despite him being a demon, he's also very much one of those character literary leading men who wants so bad to be one way, but they're tied to their fate and are forced to being another way. That's not to say Ignifex doesn't have his moments that melted my heart, as much as they also made me feel bad for him. The more I got to know him, the more I couldn't help myself and fall for him like Nyx does. Like Nyx, falling for Ignifex comes at a cost, and no matter what he feels for her, he's always honest about his true nature. I loved seeing how he evolved over the course of the book as well. He's a fascinating character.

I loved that fiery chemistry Ignifex and Nyx have. Both characters are definitely flawed. Like seriously messed up. Had they been written any other way I doubt I would have come to love reading about them. Hodge did amazing job with her characters. She throws in enticing twists that adds to the lore of both characters, aids in understanding some of the decisions they make.

Cruel Beauty's world building is absolutely stunning. There's no other way to describe it. It's vivid, and hauntingly beautiful. Having both the Greek Mythology and the Fairytale element, I felt, played perfectly into the world building. The castle, where the story is set, felt very much like a mysterious castle you'd except to find in any fairytale, like Beauty and the Beast. I also felt this setting resembled that of Greek Mythology, as it's set both in it's own world, and the human world. Cruel Beauty's setting is a world set within another world. There are rules that are set in this world that are very much tied to the rules of Greek Mythology. I love that twist in the story. While the characters believe in the Greek Gods, they also believe in the demons, who they believe originated from Tartarus. Like the angel/demon mythology, free will is something that is also very much apart of this story, but like all choices, either good or bad, there are consequences.

THIS BOOK is AWESOME! Rosamund Hodge has weaved together a stunning story that had me reading this book in one sitting. It's dark, enticing, and intoxicating. I'm a sucker for fairytale retellings and Greek Mythology, and I absolutely love the unique spin Hodge gave both, and the way she was able to mess both together. I never would have thought that mixing together the myth of Cupid & Psyche and Beauty and the Beast could be done, and done so flawlessly. I can not wait to read more of her books. This is a debut I highly recommend picking up.

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