Review: Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

Publisher: EgmontUSA

Pages: 336

Received: Bought own copy

Release Date: April 10, 2012
Buy From Amazon.ca / Buy From Chapters.ca /
Buy From BookDepository.com

Goodreads Synopsis:

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.

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.

My Review:

I love fairy tales and the main draw for me with this book was that Cross took it back to the original fairy tales where everything is so dark and disturbing and not everything ends in a happy perfect way. I have been eagerly trying to find time to pick up this book because of this idea that it is a modern day take on fairy tales, it's not a retelling (which really peaked my interest).

I really enjoyed how Cross wrote the story, instead of actually being a fairy tale Beau Rivage is a place where fairy tales come to life in different people. I liked how Cross took the stories and made them into curses for the characters instead of them actually being the characters from the tales they are forced to know that one day they will be condemned to act out the fairy tale. Cross definitely took an interesting twist to fairy tales in KILL ME SOFTLY.

Sadly, though the premise of the story caught my attention the story itself was not for me. I had trouble really getting into the story because I found myself disliking many of the characters. The main character of Mirabelle was a bit infuriating for me. I felt like she was overly naive for her age, I understand that she was very sheltered growing up but I just found that when things were clearly laid out for her she still refused to believe in it. Throughout most of the book I was yelling at her for being so closed-minded and not looking at what was right in front of her.

A lot of the secondary characters got on my nerves at times too. I just felt that the characters were very immature and I couldn't connect with any of them. I think I would have enjoyed this story a little more if the characters were more relatable. The story itself was very interesting and I enjoyed learning about the mystery behind Mirabelle's history.

I did enjoy how the story ended giving readers more insight into these fairy tales. But in the end this book just sadly wasn't for me.