Cruel Beauty, by Rosamund Hodge
| My own copy (and hedgehog bedding) |
Rating: Teen - scenes of moderate violence, gory etc., teeny romance, mystery, classic love tale.
Post Feels: I've already started to re-read it!
Blurb:
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...
Many people had super-hyped this novel from the get go. Most of the reviews I had read raved about it (which made me even more hungry to get my hands on it) and some were...um...not so favourable. Suffice to say, I ignored them. However, one thing did stick out for me - there's a love triangle. Now, I normally don't care for love triangles within romance novels. I very much a stick-to-the-first-guy-you-read-about kinda girl, as we all know most of the time the first guy (I'm using that in the non-gender binary sense) the protagonist bumps into is normally the love interest. Honestly, give it a shot. Most romance novels have that pattern. Anyhoo, there's two things about love triangles is that 1) it's plain indecisive - pick a person and stick with them. It would save so much more hassle for the reader and wouldn't make them endure the same monologue of 'Do I?' or 'Don't I?'. And 2) it makes me more inclined to skip read certain parts of the story in which I find dull, usually the bits that doesn't have my favourite love interest in. Oops.
And so, this is why I started to skip certain bits of Cruel Beauty... again, oops. Personally, I knew where the story was going and the whole love triangle bit didn't bother me as much, but I think the characterisation of Shade, one of the love interests was slightly...well...dull. He was a bit of a wet blanket. Moping around like the shadow he was and simply being all doom and gloom. To be fair, he was a prisoner in a massive castle for about 900 years, but still my point stands. All in all, I didn't skim read that much, however it was at the beginning and I didn't get the whole 'luurve' vibe from Nyx and Shade. But, Nyx and Ignifex... there was a whole lotta tension going on there. Dayyymmn.
But, I'll leave that for you guys to enjoy on your own time.
As much as I loved the book in the end, it did take me a little while to get into it. I mean the entire world was so fascinating and I would have loved it if we got to explore a little bit more of that universe, however Hodge did a really amazing job a incorporating mythologies into the reality of the book. It was truly a really enjoyable read when it came to certain aspects of the writing. However, the only reason I think the beginning was so difficult for me was because I found some of the relationships, particularly with Shade and Nyx slightly forced. It was around page 70 that Nyx felt she was 'in love' with Shade the shadow and in all honesty, it felt sort of rushed to me and could have been expanded. It wasn't until 150 pages in that things really got going for me. Albeit because of a certain Gentle Lord and his sliver tongue. He was very enjoyable indeed. Nyx too was a very complex character with her own motivations which I really, truly enjoyed. She progressed throughout the book and was flawed to begin with which I often find intriguing in a character. There are so many books in which the female lead is often too perfect or too bad-ass, and in this, Hodge got the balance just right. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the world of Arcadia through Nyx's eyes - of course, there were times when I questioned her actions and felt that the character development was somewhat forced to progress the story and fit it into the classical tale of Beauty and the Beast, but overall I really did enjoy this read. It had been so long since I had read a really good fantasy/romance and I'm really glad I spent my money on this one.
So, go on, splurge a little and buy yourself a hardback version of Cruel Beauty!
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