Cruel Beauty - Rosamund Hodge

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
Published by Balzer + Bray on January 28, 2014
Pages: 342
Genres: Fantasy, Mythology, Romance

Format: eBook
Source: Purchased

Amazon • The Book Depository • 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.

Me, when I finished this book

Cruel Beauty is set on a fantastical world based on Greek mythology, it's not a Graceling mets Beauty and the Beast, and if go into this expecting the kind of fantasy that there is on Graceling you will be majorly disappointed. This is very slow paced and more of a character study sort of book, put together with mythology and a extremely well thought world building - about the world building/mythology aspect, I fell like I have to tell, a lot of people said it was confusing and overload at times but I never felt like it, it was majorly beautiful, especially at the end when you see it all come together and how well thought & build this whole story was.

Nyx was never a hard character for me to love, she was born and raised to kill the demon that rules her lands, she is the only hope, the savior but she also was raised knowing that this task will likely be her death. It was easy to get from where it came all her jealousy, her hatred - for me, she was the personification of all the thoughts and feelings and the irrational human instinct that we have but keep buried. Ignifex and Shade were harder characters to get, both are being built during the entire story and I think that only on the end we can really get they personality and more of his reasons to be how they are.

Being a book mainly focused on the romance, if you don't enjoy it you will probably not enjoy this story so much. I have to say something, since always I wanted a romance between a main character and the villain - but not the usual YA guy with the dark secret that end up being good, no a real villain and Ignifex, being a demon, definitely fits this category of a villain that doesn't searches a reason for his acts - so that being said I absolutely loved every second of this romance! It feel like at first we would have a little of a love triangle but it didn't happened (also was really pleased how it turned out at the end) and them we had the glorious ship that is Nyx and Ignifex - they are both despicable people and they match so well together, there was one sentence that Nyx said that was something like "he has seem all the ugly parts of me and still is able to love me" and this is what made me ship these two so hard, they knew each other on the worst and still managed to fell in love. Also they have an amazing banter, both of their characters are very witty and ready to give a sharp answer to one another - especially Nyx, always remind him of her desire to kill him, it's weird that I liked their threats to each other so much? Oh, well. And their kissing scenes too, so good. And that almost ending. And them the real ending. I just, too good.

So many feels. Everything was felt with this book. Everything.

This book is basically amazing, I loved every second of it from the first chapter till the last and I know that this book isn't everyone cup of tea but I highly hope that you will give it at least a chance to capture your attention and see if you enjoy it - because I think you will.