Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“I knew it was insane to be happy, to feel this desperate exultation at his words. But I felt like I had been waiting all my life to hear them. I had been waiting, all my life, for someone undeceived to love me.”

 I don't know why I let so much time pass between reading this book and writing a review, it doesn't make any sense. Anyway, this is it, I completely loved this book, I feel like it captured almost everything I love about retellings, from the incorporation of new elements and the flawed heroine to the satisfying romance.

 Nyx's destiny is to marry the demon that cursed the island in which she lives and murdered her mother, only so she can win his trust and destroy him in the process. She is not happy with this but there's nothing she can do about it. However when the fateful day comes and Nyx moves to her husband's castle he is nothing like she imagined and the plans her vengeful father had carefully created are useless against him.

“If you’d ever asked, I would have crawled to help you. But you never wanted my help. You only wanted me to be your sweet and smiling sister. So I smiled and smiled, until I thought I would break.”

 I have to admit, I thought that the dialogue in this book was brilliant, it is after all a romance driven novel and a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but compared to other similar stories this seemed so unique to me; it has a lot of Greek Mythology elements that paint a very interesting background, and the evolution of Nyx and Ignifex's relationship was better developed than in most YA books.

 But what really captured my attention was the protagonist's characterization, she strikes as little bitter in the beggining, but really who wouldn't be? When you're forced to marry a monster for your father to finally obtain his revenge on said man? She resents her family for forcing that fate on her, and yet she still wants to do good for them and the other people in the island. But then Ignifex is not exactly the kind of monster she believed and he might be a tiny bit thoughtful too... At least when he's not mad.

 When I finished it, I thought it was one of the best retellings I've read this year and I still feel that way, so if you love Beauty and the Beast give it a try, I was pleasantly surprised.

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