Review: Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe) by Rosamund Hodge

Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe) by Rosamund Hodge 

Expected publication: January 28th 2014 by Balzer + Bray

Hardcover, 352 pages

Series: Cruel Beauty Universe?

Genre: Young Adult Retellings/Fairy Tales
Heat Rating: Kissing

Source: I got a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange of an honest review.
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Summary 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.

Oh gosh I been on a total kick in reading Fairy Tale retellings lately and I love the variety that has been coming out these days, so it's not it's the same Fairy Tale over and over again.

Beauty and the Beast has always been one of my favorites, so when I saw the announcement of Cruel Beauty I just knew I had to get my hands on it one way or another. Boy, I wasn't disappointed. Rosamund Hodge just knew how to weave her words perfectly enough to pull me in, tug on the strings around my heart and leave me clutching the book in embrace afterwords.

Step into the darker side of Beauty and the Beast and leave everything that you know when you read Cruel Beauty. Nyx has known all her life that her father has made a big bargain with the Gentle Lord, who is a demon and she must marry him and join him in his castle for the rest of her life. Ever since the bargain was made, Nyx has been trained from a very little girl how she could possibly kill the immortal Ignifex and free Arcadia from his shadows.

Nothing is as easy as she expects. Upon meeting Ignifex, Nyx finds that the lord is charming and she is unexpectedly drawn to him. But even love might not be enough to keep her from her duty of saving her kingdom.

Gosh I loved the story. Nyx was an interesting character with a lot of battles inside her heart. Knowing that her duty is to rescue her hometown as everyone expects her too, but falling in love with Ignifex had left her with a raging battle between right and wrong. I didn't think Nyx was as evil and dark as she had painted herself to be and blamed herself over and over in the book. I thought her reaction towards her entire situation was very human. 

I loved the world that Hodge had created and the imagery she had painted of the castle and it's magical rooms that natural Nyx finds herself drawn to as she explores the castle in hopes of finding it's hearts.

Top it off with a sprinkle of romance and the bickering dialogue between Nyx and Ignifex. Thrown in a bit of twists and darkness and you have yourself an essence of The Beauty and the Beast. Thought yes, this had some darker elements to the story, it just added to the overall feeling but it wasn't too bad at all!