rmtroyer93's reviews
1351 reviews

The moment that I find out about any fairy tale retelling I make it number one of my reading list, but more so with retellings of Beauty and the Beast my favorite one of all time. However, most of the time I do not like most of them, most of all Beastly, but Cruel Beauty is now my favorite retelling so far and that is saying something.
The Good:
Nyx is one kick ass heroine because she is smart and has flaws instead of being perfect. I knew that I liked her the moment she punched her husband in the face.
The writing style is one I really enjoyed and I had a hard time putting it down, plus I will be reading any other books by Hodge in the future.

My Rating:
Five out of Five Stars, something I do not give out a lot. I recommend this book to all of those Beauty and the Beast fans it was an amazing read!

Review from my blog - http://obsessedwithfairytales.blogspot.com/2014/04/cruel-beauty-by-rosamund-hodge.html

I'm a big fan of Edger Allen Poe so I knew that I would enjoy this novel, plus I was already familiar with Jessica Verday's writing style after reading The Hollow series. I liked this book even more then the Sleepy Hollow retelling, the setting and the writing was even more Gothic and creepy.

The only downfall that I found was that it was a little slow in the beginning and there could have been even more creepiness going on.

The main character Annabel was not boring or stupid and I was a big fan of hers by the end of the novel.

The ending of the first book makes it clear that there will be a second novel, and I will continuing the series.

Strange Angels came out in 2009, and it has been on my to-read list for years, so when I saw in my libraries ebook collection I just had to check it out.

I really enjoyed the book, and a big factor was the fact that it reminds me of the TV show Supernatural.
Instead of Sam and Dean, you have Dru who hunts monsters with her father, and Graves the funny goth kid that gets pulled along as Dru fights off the creatures hunting her.

The character Graves was my favorite, and I would loved his POV in a chapter or two or a full book because he was such a funny and well-written characters.

And the paranormal creatures were well-written in the story, and Dru being able to taste things and feel a certain way when they are close by.

I recommend this book for people who enjoy paranormal books, because it has all types of different creatures like zombies and werewolfs.

I managed to grab this book for $1.99 (plus I had a gift card so it was free), and it was worth every cent. Plus I got it before it went back to 4.99.

The main character Ruby Rose (the name is a little eh, but I still liked it) is pretty kick-ass, a character that reminded me of Buffy and Veronica Mars. The type that shows girls it is okay to like girly things and also be awesome fighters. There were a few characters that I did not care for in the book, but Ruby and Liam made up for that with all of their cuteness.

The book kept me guessing all the way until the end, and I'm a big fan of books or any type of story line that makes me try to figure what is going to happen.

The only thing I did not like about the book was some of the choices that the main character makes.

I recommend this to people who like action filled books, and a fun quick read.

In the second novel of The Other series, I learned that you do not want to come after Meg at all, because a whole mess of shifters, elementals, freaking grim reapers, and vampires will be on you in a second. And the even funnier thing is that in this series I actually like the Others more then the humans (Meg is not truly human since she is a blood prophet) they are starting to be the ruthless ones, drugging the Others and murdering them.

The only thing I had to say is that Simon and Meg are so in love, and yet they don't see it while others do, and I want them to finally get together in the next book. I hate the whole, she's a human and he's a Wolf so they can't be together BS, they should be allowed to fall in love.

And now I'm so sad because I have to wait until the next book comes out. :(

I recommend this book to those who have read the first one, it isn't as great as Written In Red, but it is still amazing.

Many people are saying that the first few books in the series are not that great, I disagree! I've loved the first two novels, and cannot wait to get my hands on the next book in the series! And I'm going to watch the television show that only lasted on season, but looks awesome!



Murphy got my nerves throughout the second novel (and a little bit in the first novel) but by the end she got a whole lot better. And I'm crossing my fingers that she won't try to arrest Harry in every book, if I was here I would have started trusting him a lot sooner. The new character were great, and I really like Susan.

My one compliant was there was not enough of Mister and Bob, love those side characters and they were not used enough in this book.

I recommend that even if you did not care for the first book give this one a shot.

This series continues to get better as I read it, and I'm starting to get attached to these wonderful but flawed characters. One of the new characters in this book was Ivy, who is a child - the Archive, who has all the knowledge of the world. Even though she is all business when monitoring Dresden's duel she had a huge soft spot for cats and nearly melts with glee when petting Mister. So cute! The main plot line was okay, I'm not big of religious story lines, but since it brought back Micheal (and his awesome family, love Charity and Molly their 14-year old daughter) that helped make it better.

Susan finally comes back, but sadly is still Half-Vampire, and this puts a strain on their relationship. :( Poor Harry.

This book has been on my list to read for ages, I would look at it but never pick it up. My main reasons for wanting to read it was because of the awesome cover and my love of Gothic novels (plus zombies and corsets, lol). I finially pushed myself to read it because I managed to sag a hardcover copy of the second novel in the series, A Darkness Strange and Lovely, for about 2 bucks, and I'm glad that I did. I don't tend to buy books out of order, however, the cover was way too lovely (no pun intended) to pass up.



The zombies/spirits in the book were really cool, the idea of someone controlling them was well done, and even though I saw the twist coming it was awesome.

I recommend this book if you love paranormal books and want a quick read.

I just love an author who can mix supernatural elements and normal fiction into one, and this book was so well written and littered with the right amount of mystery. Plus I've read other books by Koontz and really enjoy his writing style (my favorite of his is Odd Thomas). I had a hard time putting this down!

The idea that a city can come to the people in it in human form is such a unique idea, and Koontz does a great job telling it. The main character Jonah is easy to connect to as he tells his story into a tape recorder (which is a interesting way of story telling), talking about his childhood and meeting the city in the form of a woman and how she changes the lives of her residents.

I recommend checking this book out when it comes out on July 1st next month, another brilliant book by Koontz.

I had a hard time reading Emma, also by Austen, so I was not expecting much with this novel. However, I really enjoyed Austen's exploration into high society and how the people acted silly about gaining favor with high borne people.

Anne was a brilliant main characters, I think she is now among my favorite Austen characters (with Lizzie, and Marianne) because she is a lot more down to earth and kind then the rest of her family. However, I did not care that much for the love interest, Captain Wentworth, I do not think he was given enough development, and instead Austen focused on Anne's annoying family and how atrocious they acted. I would have liked a little less of the satire about the high class people and more of Anne and Fredrick's love story, I wanted them to end up together but they did not get enough of the book.



If you enjoyed Jane Austen's other novel (or even if you did not care for Emma like me) I recommend checking out this classic, but be warned many of the aristocratic characters are annoying (which was Austen's point).