Book Review: Cruel Beauty by Rosamond Hodge

Cruel Beauty was everything I wanted it to be and more! This book surprised by just how intriguing it was. This book had the perfect mix between fairy-tale and Greek Mythology. It twisted the story of beauty and the beast perfectly into a dark and mysterious story which still had some cute and happy moments. There were also references to other fairy-tales, like Rumpelstiltskin. The Greek Mythology side was also interesting without being too hard to understand.

One of the other aspects I loved about this book was the main character, Nyx. Most lead characters in books are heroes who always have hearts filled with goodness. Nyx was different though. She definitely had darkness in her heart and she knew it. Nyx was cruel and had a lot of hate especially toward her family. This doesn’t necessarily make her a bad character. It just made her character more realistic and more like a real human. I did like her character development though when she eventually learnt to love.  

Overall this story was really intriguing and interesting. I found myself reading this and not being able to stop. This book sucked me in from almost the beginning and left me thinking up different theories and ideas. When I first picked up this book I was constantly wondering how the ending would be, happy like a fairy-tale or tragic as the title suggests. I was personally very satisfied with the ending and can’t think of any possible way to improve it.

--Spoiler Section—YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED—

Although I did enjoy this book there were still certain parts that confuse me. First of all, the part toward the ending confused me, I didn’t really understand who the Kindly Ones actually were and how Nyx’s final bargain actually worked in her favour. It was probably explained somewhere in the book I had probably just forgotten. I was also confused at the end by the Tom-a Lone marriage thing. I mean who would want to sign up to be married for one year to a complete stranger. And who would want to be the husband that got killed on the night of getting married. That was what the Tom-a Lone ceremony was about, right?? I was also confused about how the Children of Typhon’s song they sang when they killed someone (who knows why they liked to sing) turned into a lullaby??

Now going back to the positives let’s talk about Ignifex and Shade. Okay, first of all I don’t know if this makes me evil but I liked Ignifex much better than Shade. I felt while Ignifex was evil so was Shade, and I didn’t fully understand why someone decided to pull them apart and make one in charge of the other?? It was sort of strange yet cool in the end how they both ended up being the same person.

The ending though reminded me a lot of Romeo and Juliet. With Nyx (sort of) wanting to die with Marcus Valerious Lux (wow, what a name :P). It was very beautiful though even though I didn’t fully understand how her wish led to them both being free. I also liked how in the end all the ties with her families were sorted. Her dad still didn’t love her as much as he loved her sister but he respected her in a different way. It was sort of nice also to see her getting alone with her aunt, even if I didn’t really like her aunt at all. And of course it was so great to see Nyx and Astraia getting along so well without any jealously between them. I really liked her sister’s character since she was strong in her own way but also just as cruel as her sister.  

In the end this book was really enjoyable. I would really have liked there to have been an epilogue in this book, but I understand why there isn’t one. I am looking forward to picking up the novella for this book and eventually reading more of Rosamond Hodge’s books to come.