It’s one of those books that I can’t stop thinking about. I listened to this Rosamund Hodge fantasy novel on audiobook (narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden) and the character’s voice still sings in my head, weeks later. I keep stumbling around in my mind trying to remember the plot over and over because it gets more interesting every time. I didn’t think much of the book when I started it, I just needed something. The review that popped up under the book’s synopsis that I didn’t read, said that it fell along the archetypes of Beauty and the Beast. And while I see that resemblance, I think it does the book a terrible injustice. Arcadia is led by the demon king. They call him the Gentle Lord. Those foolish enough can make deals with him, as one does the devil in other stories, but he always requires a heavy price. Nyx’s father made a deal with him before she was born. He and his wife weren’t able to bear children, so he went asking for a son to carry on his name. Instead the Gentle Lord offered him twin girls, if and only if, he gave one of them up to marry him when they turned a certain age. Now, that “sacrifice” was Nyx. And so the story starts. Everything she has ever believed about her world will be turned upside down. Those moments are the kind that leave my mind whirring; the idea of good and evil, about ever being able to draw the lines. Times that show the power of truth and how missing even one piece of it can skew your whole understanding. Nyx was born and raised to marry a monster, given the weight of being the only one who could save the world. She thought that made her callous, but it didn’t, not like it could have. She still felt compassion and saw beauty in horrible things. She knew true forgiveness. This was a tale laced with hints of Greco-Roman mythology and new ideas of what lies in the darkness. To say it is merely a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, is to ignore deeper messages inside the pages. Nyx comes face to face with a demon, the thing humans get told horror stories about, the thing she has trained to kill, and doesn’t flinch. She tries to learn all that she can about him and his mysterious castle, and doesn’t stop even when those truths don’t match what she has been told all of her life. I would put this book on the shelf of fantasy/ romance/ fiction for older YA readers. It is dark and, at times, disturbing to the point of feeling trippy, but not horror or all depressing. Powerful shifts between character voices and fascinating setting that I’ve never heard before, very much descriptive enough to visualize. There is so much more I could say on this book. I could go on about how it's funny and surprisingly sweet, but I guess you'll have to read it yourself to find out.
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