It’s been a long time since I picked up a YA book. To be honest I was over the whiny teenage girl drama, the cheesy love triangles, and the instant love that seems to happen with angsty teenagers.
Having said that, I went into this book expecting some overly dramatic girl meets boy, boy hates girl, eventually they end up liking each other crap. I briefly looked at book ratings and top to-read books and kept coming back to this book, over and over and decided it was time to pick it up and see what all of the hype is about. I have two words that sum up this book. MIND. BLOWN.
This book was a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, but with fairies! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I said fairies. Not those glowing half naked winged things that dance through the woods kind of fairies, but the kind that have been written in books like The Middle Kingdom: The Faerie World of Ireland by Dermot MacManus. These fairies will give you nightmares! Sarah Maas did a beautiful job of keeping to the basic literary structure of Beauty and the Beast while weaving a horrifyingly beautiful tale in a unique, yet believable way.
My absolute favorite thing about this book, besides it being a re-telling of my favorite fairytale, is the characters. Feyre, our protagonist, actually does what so little YA characters do in novels: shows growth! She is a strong woman, cunning, smart, loyal, basically everything you want in a strong female lead. As for her love interest, Ms. Maas gives us the heart twist-swoon worthy-deep-thoughtful-man candy that is Tamlin.
I really liked the side characters, the ones we love to hate, with Rhysand being my favorite. I can’t wait to read what becomes of him and Lucien in later books.
Rhysand stared at me for long enough that I faced him.
"Be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who don't feel anything at all.”
If you are like me, you might roll your eyes at re-telling books. This was the first book I have ever read as a retelling that I LOVED! I am very happy that I took the chance to give this one a try. I was not disappointed and cannot wait to read the next book in this series!
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