Kill Me Softly-- Sarah Cross
Release Date: April 10th, 2012Genre: Romance, Fairy Tale, Teen Angst
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Pages: 331
Rating:
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Summary:
Mirabelle's past is shrouded in secrecy, from her parents' tragic deaths to her guardians' half-truths about why she can't return to her birthplace, Beau Rivage. Desperate to see the town, Mira runs away a week before her sixteenth birthday—and discovers a world she never could have imagined.Blurb: A GREAT concept. A not great book.
In Beau Rivage, nothing is what it seems—the strangely pale girl with a morbid interest in apples, the obnoxious playboy who's a beast to everyone he meets, and the chivalrous guy who has a thing for damsels in distress. Here, fairy tales come to life, curses are awakened, and ancient stories are played out again and again.
But fairy tales aren't pretty things, and they don't always end in happily ever after. Mira has a role to play, a fairy tale destiny to embrace or resist. As she struggles to take control of her fate, Mira is drawn into the lives of two brothers with fairy tale curses of their own... brothers who share a dark secret. And she'll find that love, just like fairy tales, can have sharp edges and hidden thorns
Review: Perhaps I should break this up into the things I liked and didn't like about this book, eh?
Things I liked about this book:
The idea of modern teenagers being cursed to live our fairy tales.
That's it. That's what got it those two stars. All I liked about this book was the concept. So now let's talk about the other side:
Things I didn't like about this book:
The modern teenagers talked like modern teenagers. The profanity wasn't severe, but too frequent for my tastes. They also were drunk/drinking ALL THE TIME! Where are the adults here?! Some of these kids are 15!
Mira. Ugh. I don't know if I've ever had a main character annoy me so much! Here's how her though processes went "You're attractive, mysterious, and nice. I want to sleep with you. What?! You're all cursed to relive fairy tales?! Okay. No big deal. Oh... but your brother is attractive, mysterious, and a total jerk. I hate him. But give me some time and I think I'll make out with him too."
NONE of her thought processes seemed real. She fell in love with the two guys who seemed super-creepy, while ignoring the guy who actually was sweet to her because she didn't want to feel "forced" into that relationship. It took her all of two seconds to come to terms with the fairy-tale land, despite having never even read fairy tales as a child.
I should also mention that the guy she contemplates sleeping with is TWENTY ONE YEARS OLD. And she's not even sixteen. Now, don't correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that illegal? And CREEPY?!
And here's some pretty major spoiler-y comments. If you don't plan on reading this book, or don't care about spoilers, highlight to view.
WHY did no one want to kill the SERIAL KILLER?! He's literally killed DOZENS of girls and yet no one is putting a stop to it! In fact, they are actively PROTECTING him! What is wrong with you people?!
I also don't understand WHY Mira's Godmothers took her away from Beau Rivage in the first place. So we find out that Mira is cursed to live out the tale of Sleeping Beauty, and only the kiss of a prince will wake her up. But here's the thing: THEY KNOW WHO THE PRINCE IS! And he lives in Beau Rivage! So why take her away from him?! What you should have done is pricked her finger with the razor WHILE HE WAS IN THE ROOM, have him kiss her, and voila! There was absolutely no need to take her away from her parents and raise her in seclusion you crazy people!
Overall the story just fell flat. I felt like there was a lot going on, and not a lot to tie it together. The characters felt like hormones incarnate, and I couldn't relate to any of them. There were characters that I almost began to like, and then they would do something totally creepy or wrong. I ended up not liking anyone.
I feel bad because I had such high hopes for this book, but... it was a no go for me. *sigh*
Other Reviews:
- Ageless Pages Reviews (Loved it!)
- a GREAT read (It was okay)
- The Reviews News (Didn't like it)
All review content © Enna Isilee, Squeaky Books 2007-2012
*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.
Aww! I'm bummed that you didn't like this one! Someone pointed it out to me on GR, and while I was excited about the FT thing (obvs) I never felt like I NEEDED to read this one. And now, I probably won't (at least not ANY time soon), unless it falls in my lap :P
ReplyDeleteI felt much the same as you. The age difference really bothered me. And how qucikly she was 'in love' with that boy, who she seemed to hardly spend time with! I love your thoughts on what the godmothers should have done. LOL SO true! Overall I enjoyed it but they left a lot of open ends in this one that weren't wrapped up. Great review!
ReplyDeleteI had high hopes for this one as well based on the concept. I don't think I'm going to pick it up now and will just stick to watching Once Upon a Time. Will they please make that show into a series of books to read?!
ReplyDeleteBAHAH! So I've read this book, and adored it, but I may love your review more. I don't necessarily agree with all of your points but I can definitely see where you're coming from. I guess I was able to forgive most of those errors because I did just enjoy the plot/concept and it was a quick read. But I just love your thought processes here - even though it was different than mine. Good Review.
ReplyDeleteThat makes me sad. I was looking forward to this book, but now I'm not sure if I want to read it.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is a shame you didn't like the book I have to make a remark on the age difference thing
ReplyDeleteif this was any other book I'd agree with you the age difference is squek however this is the key
Fairy tales
This is modern teenagers acting like fairy tale characters? okay then the age thing isn't that creepy looking at classic fairy tales 15 vs 21? that is mild compared to the real fairy tales
Snow white - 7 years old(or 12 years old I'm not sure), lives with murders, theives, pedos etc then gets to live with a prince who is probably 18 years old
Sleeping beauty- I'm not going to go into it here( I can say she was NOT woken by a kiss) but age wise 16 and the prince? 21 ...
there are more of course but lets leave it at that
I'm not saying you are wrong I'm just saying that given the material and that these are fairy tales we are talking about the age range in this book while creepy isn't unusual if the author is sticking with the classic fairy tales
Like I said if this was ANY other type of book then yes creepy (other then vampire which would fall into creepy as well) but not as bad as it could be
I was looking forward to find out what you thought of this book, and when I read the review I was disappointed that the book was made of suckiness. Even though I trusted your opinion, I finally got to this book on my pile today and thought I could just blast through it quickly. I read one chapter and put it down. Then I came back here to finally highlight that spoiler.
ReplyDeleteI find that I am not willing to spend time on bad books in my old age! And my ratio of bad to good books has been really high this year. Onward to better books!
Thanks for reading this so I don't have to. :p
I didn't enjoy this book either, but you got a lot further than I did. I read the beginning, skipped the middle, and skimmed the end. Blah. You filled in a lot of the plot for me and I'm doubley glad I didn't commit the time. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteI honestly loved the book ..... But there ages is just plain creepy...... I've read a lot of books and this one and I'm not being overly dramatic....... Is by far the creepiest
ReplyDelete