4. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Title: Cruel Beauty
Author: Rosamund Hodge
Publication Info: Published January 28th 2014 by Balzer + Bray
ISBN: 0062224735
Series: Cruel Beauty Universe
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal

Yet another retelling that was so original that I could not believe it was a retelling when I found out. This dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Rosamund Hodge was intriguing 'til the very end.

Our heroine and speaker, Nyx, has been raised to be a sacrifice and weapon. Her father had made a bargain with the demon that ruled their country of Arcadia, trapped away from the rest of the world, and in exchange, the demon demanded one of his twin daughters for his wife.

Thus, the plan to use Nyx as a means of ending this fiend, the Gentle Lord, comes to fruition. Nyx has always resented the fact that that was all she had been deemed important for. She had resented the fact that she had to pay for her father's mistake, avenge their mother or die trying, while her more beloved younger twin sister, Astraia, continued on with life being treasured and safe. She herself, declared that she had poison in her heart and thus deserved to die.

Nyx is married off to the Gentle Lord as per her father's agreement, dropped off at his house, and proceeds, unknowing what she will find, to begin her mission. The Gentle Lord, who tells her to call him Ignifex until she can guess his real name, is at times cruel and strangely kind. He turns out to not be what she expects, and eventually, the girl who meet her husband for the first time with a knife strapped against her thigh and a heart of malice learned from the very monster she was destined to destroy how to be kind and love without bitterness.

Ironic, is it not?

Cruel Beauty was definitely dark, and had twists that surprised even me. Nyx seemed to be doomed to a life filled with self-sacrifice and tragic choices. Her nothing-to-lose attitude and inner acceptance of her flawed personality only made me more inclined to favor her success, and when, in the end, things turned out pretty okay for everyone all around, I, too was pleased.

Hodge's storytelling was smooth, her characters well-developed and plot beautifully dark - a debut novel that landed her a spot on my authors-to-look-out-for list. Cruel Beauty scores a rating of 7.5/10.

Favorite Quote: "But it seems to me that if you break something, you can't complain when it's in pieces."

You can get a copy of Cruel Beauty wherever you usually get books, such as sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3. Nameless (Tales of Beauty and Madness #1) by Lili St. Crow

Title: Nameless
Author: Lili St. Crow
Publication Info: Published April 4th 2013 by Razorbill
Series: Tales of Beauty and Madness Trilogy #1
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal

Euphoric about the end of finals, I went hunting through my eBook library for a story worthy of being the first I read to launch my summer of binge-reading, and found Nameless by Lili St. Crow. Having previously read all of The Strange Angels series by this author and thoroughly enjoying it, I decided to give this a try.

Though at first I was confused because of the unfamiliar terminologies of the fantasy world Lili St. Crow presents, eventually my confusion vanished as everything was eventually explained, both directly and indirectly, and I fell into the rhythm of St. Crow's storytelling.

The story begins with a scene of a snow covered landscape, onto which a limousine is travelling carrying Enrico Vultisino, a high-ranking vampire. The vehicle nearly runs over a cowering lump in the road that turns out to be a pale-skinned, blue-eyed, 6 year old girl with ink-black hair and numerous scars and signs of abuse all over her body. The Family head takes her in, gives her the name of his dead wife, Camille, and raises her alongside his son, Nico, in the lap of luxury.

Ten years later, Cami is about to turn sixteen. She doesn't speak too much because of her stutter and so a large portion of the tale incorporates her thoughts more than dialogue.Like many adoptive children, Cami starts to wonder where she really belongs, and about her parents - what her real name was. She is highly conscious of the fact that she is not Family; not even a vampire, just a mere-human. Because of this, Camille goes searching for answers and eventually finds some in the form of Torin Beale, a garden boy with scars like hers who offers her "the right kind of trouble".

I am usually not one to condone a brother-sister relationship, even if the siblings in question aren't biologically related, but I couldn't help but support the relationship that developed frustratingly subtly between Nico Vultisino and Camille. The two were just so right together because of the deep connection they had, and the devotion Nico showed for Camille in his own ways. Besides, who am I to fight the inevitable anyway?

The characters were well-developed, all of them staying true to their initially portrayed personalities. Besides Camille, Nico, Tor and Enrico, there's also Camille's closest friends: Ruby, the fiery red-head with an equally fiery temperament and Ellen, the practical, sensible type who was enduring the abuse her stepmother doled out. Even the supporting characters such as Marya, the housebound fey, were uniquely different in their own ways.

The biggest issue I had with this tale was that the romance between Nico and Camille wasn't satisfying to me, possibly because I was focusing on it as a main plot component and waiting for the fireworks (Seriously, not even a real kiss between them. :( ). Other than that, I was hooked by the mystery shrouding our main character and those around her, and was tempted to skip to the end of the book to see what happened. (I didn't though.)

The themes in this tale were mostly dark themes, almost-twisted in some ways, and much darker than her Strange Angels series. Camille as a lead heroine was also something to get used to, as she spent quite a significant portion of the book being passive and thoughtful. It was a change from the usual kick-ass, guns blazing, strong female lead characters usually found in modern young adult fiction novels. Not that Cami wasn't strong - she was. Hers was just a quiet, easily overlooked kind of strength.

I was quite surprised to find that it was a retake on the popular tale of Snow White. Though the recognizable components were there (the evil queen, mirrors, apples, and a main female character with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, etc), St. Crow made the story so much of her own it was barely recognizable as a retelling of the fairy tale.

My rating for this tale is a 7/10.

Favorite Quote: It was, she reminded herself, a Personal Choice to speak, or not.

If you wish to purchase this novel, check Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Penguin Books or anywhere else books are sold.

2. The Book of Ivy by Amy Engel

Title: The Book of Ivy

Author: Amy Engel

Publication Info: Published November 11th 2014 by Entangled: Teen

ISBN: 1622664655

Series: The Book of Ivy #1

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia, Romance

A good book allows you to enter the world within and live between its pages for a time. A great book doesn't give you a choice. Its narration takes hold of you and pulls you under without you even knowing when it happens. By the time you realize it, you just accept it and get comfortable.

You already know that you'll be there for a while.

The Book of Ivy was one of those great books for me. This narrative kept me up when I should have been asleep (I had school in the morning, after all.), curled under a large quilt and immensely grateful for the invention of tablets and E-reader apps.

The author, Amy Engel, presents Westfall: a town with a population of about ten thousand people - presumably all that are left in the United States in the aftermath of a nuclear war.  Westfall is divided into two parts, one slightly better than the other, and every year, teenagers aged 16 and up from each side are married to each other. This tradition is maintained in order to keep the peace and order of the town. It is also to encourage healthy population growth. Because of the residual effects of nuclear bombs, the younger you are when you produce children, the higher the likelihood that your kids will be born healthy.

The marriages are determined by a series of personality tests and the final decision is exactly that: final. The teens don't have a choice in the matter. 

Our heroine and narrator, sixteen-year-old Ivy Westfall, is on her way to get married at the beginning of this tale. She is the youngest granddaughter of the Westfall who was responsible for bringing together survivors of the war and settling them in the town, only to lose his role of leader in a conflict to the Lattimer family. 

Fifty years later, a Lattimer is still the President of the town, a role that will be passed on to his son, Bishop Lattimer.

As the daughter of the founder (also a title that is passed down to sons, this time in the Westfall family), Ivy has been chosen to marry Bishop. Because of this, her father and sister decides that she is to be the instrument through which the stages of their plot to take back leadership of the town will be carried out.

Her first mission? Kill Bishop Lattimer and help to restore her family to power.

Life with Bishop isn't what she expected, however. He isn't what she expected. Eventually,  Ivy realizes that things aren't as simple as she thought. She begins to question her loyalties and choices, and ends up making a very difficult decision in order to save those she cares about - including Bishop.

The characters of this novel are complex and beautifully portrayed. Bishop, Ivy's eighteen-year-old husband, is generally easy-going. He is thoughtful, highly perceptive and can be ruthless - a quality that, like Ivy, I can only admire him for having. I find it ironic that it is Bishop's existence in her life, and not that of her power-hungry sister Callie, nor her father, that encourages Ivy to grow. In a society where there is not that much choice in certain aspects of life available to its citizens, Bishop gives her the freedom to make a large amount of choices within their marriage. 

Ivy started out loyal to her family's cause, to the point where even when she realized that she was being manipulated, she still allowed it to happen. She often looked for approval from her sister and father, even when she began to question their motives for wanting to be in power. Ivy's voice as narrator was as straightforward as her personality, easy to follow and highly relatable. Her growth was subtle at first before becoming more apparent and I found myself rooting for her every step of the way.

Over the few hours I spent reading this book, I fell in love with Bishop, Ivy and their relationship. The ending of this first installment of this series nearly broke my heart. 

This book made me cry at times, and smile, and left me hungry for more. I give The Book of Ivy a rating of a 10/10.

Favorite Quotes: 

"We fall asleep that way. His lips on my neck. My heart in his hand."

"But I've learned the hard way, we can’t choose who we love. Love chooses us. Love doesn't care about what’s convenient or easy or planned. Love has its own agenda and all we can do is get out of its way."

"But I want to be better than the lessons they taught me. I want my love to be greater than my hate, my mercy to be stronger than my vengeance."

Buy this book at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble or wherever books are sold.

1. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Title: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Author: Holly Black
Publication Info: Little, Brown, and Company September 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-21310-3
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

I know one isn't supposed to judge a book by its cover, but this beautiful cover is the second thing that persuaded me to read this book (Possibly because blue is my favourite colour and is that not a wonderful blend of blues?), the first being that it's written by Holly Black, a familiar name to me.

I don't regret a second I spent reading this book and finished it in about a day. I seriously could not escape the hold this story had on my attention until I was at the very end and wishing for more. Unfortunately, however, this tale is not a part of a series.

This YA novel is a vampire novel like no other vampire novel I've read.

The world Black created is sort of dystopian in nature, with humans having to deal with the presence of vampires among them. When you are bitten by a vampire and are infected, you become 'Cold'. If, however, you can resist the urge to drink human blood for 88 days, then you are pretty much cured. After the outbreak of vampires, 'Coldtowns' were created - enclosed areas where all vampires are sent to live in exile, along with anyone else who wants to live there, Cold or not.

No one can leave a Coldtown unless they have a marker.

No one can get a marker unless they capture and turn in a vampire and are not a vampire him or herself.

The story begins by introducing the main character, Tana, a teen-aged girl who attends a party and wakes up the next day fully-clothed in a bathtub in a house full of corpses. (What a way to start the day, huh?) She soon discovers that all the party goers are dead, the only exceptions being herself, her infected ex-boyfriend Aidan, and a vampire, Gavriel, that she finds chained in the same room as her ex. It's almost sunset, which means the other vampires that are still in the house will soon be able to finish up what they started. Knowing this, Tana quickly thinks up a plan of escape, threatens her ex to beat him with a tire iron if he tried to bite her, and then shoves the still-chained vampire into the trunk of their escape vehicle.

She doesn't mention that, just before she made it out the window during their escape, one of the vampires giving chase had scraped her with its teeth.

Together this unlikely trio make their way to the nearest Coldtown. Tana, upon recognizing that she is going Cold, resolves to remain quarantined there until she has sat out the requisite 88 days in order to fight her infection.When they get there, it's revealed that there's more to a Coldtown than the never-ending party that a few of the glamorous vampires show to the world via live Internet feeds.

One of the things that make this story a bit more different is that, though there was some romance between Gavriel and Tana, it is not the main focus. In the end, their relationship remains pretty much ambiguous. There were a few moments that made me go 'awhh' between them - but not much.

In terms of characters, Aidan was rather annoying in the story, and didn't show much development or growth towards the end of the tale. Gavriel was the most complex character, and I thought his moments of insanity were very well portrayed. 

Tana was my favourite - she seemed just like any other teen girl. Not all of her choices were good ones or clear ones, but her stubbornness and desire to save whoever she can save makes up for that.

I admired that she retained all her good qualities even in the face of the harsh realities of Coldtown, and that she didn't give up in what often seemed like a hopeless situation.

Out of 10, I give this an 8.

         Favorite Quote: "Every hero is the villain of his own story."

This book can be found for sale online on sites like Amazon , Barnes & Nobles and Kobo, to name a few.