Review: Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross



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.

Review:

I was super excited to start reading Kill Me Softly and had heard a lot of good reviews. Despite the first few chapters which had me in doubts and the writing style which seemed more tell than show, Kill Me Softly did live up to the expectations I had for it: a nice, “lazy”, fairy-tale retelling.

Kill Me Softly features so many fairy tales: Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and even Hansel and Gretel were thrown in for a bit. What made this even more unique than just a bunch of fairy tales thrown into the book was the adaption of the Brother Grimm tales. In the lead up to the reveal (which happened a lot more quickly than I was expecting) of the intention and being of the town and other characters, we did get to see the “truth” behind these tales as they were originally written. As fascinating as this was, I’m so glad I got the Disney version. Some of them were really horrible and because I’m really morbid I actually went and read some of the Brother Grimm tales after finishing this.

I loved the majority of the characters in this book. There were some that I didn’t like, but I’m fairly sure we weren’t meant to like them. Having said that there were a tonne of characters in Kill Me Softly to cover so many fairy tales it did mean not many other characters were as fully developed. I really wish we got more time to spend with the other characters, especially some that played a huge role in the end but we didn’t really get to know.

Romance played a huge part, too. This is where I felt like I was most disappointed. Mirabelle falls in love with Felix (Blue’s brother)—but I never felt this love. I didn’t even understand the fascination. Felix is never really there and when he is there isn’t much that stands out to me about him. His brother Blue got more page time than he ever did, even though I totally understand why and am thankful, it just meant that I lacked the understanding of Mirabelle’s actions when it came to Felix, as well as her emotions.

I mentioned about the writing style that seemed more tell than show—this was where I struggled in the first few chapters. We—the readers—were really being told everything about Mirabelle and her legal guardians (who only appeared at the beginning and the end) rather than allowing us to know them in other ways (flashbacks would have been a good way considering we did get third person narration from a different character throughout). But once we got to meet the characters of Blue, Felix and the entire gang (I am currently name blank) I didn’t seem to notice it so much (it died down), so I think the tell Vs show was done on purpose so we understood Mirabelle’s action. I really do wish it had been done a different way though because it did annoy me.

Overall, I really enjoyed Kill Me Softly. I think it was a really cute and fun read and definitely “lazy” in a Summer just-chilling kind of way. The writing and the romance between Mira and Felix let me down, but I don’t think it was too big of an issue to worry about when thinking of reading this.

Review: 3.5 stars
Date Published: April 10th 2012
Publisher: Egmont USA
Source: bought
Format: ebook
Date Read: July 2012
Page Count: 336
Series/Stand Alone: Stand alone