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jol69's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars. I really enjoyed this different take on the beauty & the beast story.
noemi1010's review against another edition
3.0
Beauty is an huntress and when her father disappears in the forest, she leaves her sisters at the house and follows her father's footsteps. She thing she's the hunter, but she doesn't know that someone else is hunting her too—the Beast. The Beast has been looking for centuries for a hunter who could help it, and when she sees Beauty in the woods it doesn't waste the opportunity. It kidnaps her, hoping that a hunter will come for her, but it doesn't realise that she's the hunter it's been waiting for ages. The relationship between the two is strained, but when Beauty has a choice to make, she needs to decide if she can continue with her life before her kidnapping or to still help out the Beast and turn it back into a man.
It's a Beauty and the Beast retelling, and although the story was cute I found many parts that were confusing.
It's a Beauty and the Beast retelling, and although the story was cute I found many parts that were confusing.
seyahrue's review against another edition
4.0
I read this book as part of our readalong over at ThePageTurnersClub on Instagram:
I struggled to decide whether or not to give this book a 3 or 4 star rating, but I think I'm leaning more towards 4. For the most of the first half of the book, nothing really seemed to happen - we were introduced to the character of Yeva and her family, which was a great way to get to know them, but they didn't actually do a whole lot.
The story didn't really pick up until Yerba was captured by the Beast, and even then it was still quite slow in parts since a lot of her time was spent doing the same things over and over. But the writing is really beautiful, and it was interesting to see how Yeva adapted to her new life in the castle and with the Beast.
I love the Beauty and the Beast story, so I went into this with certain expectations, and my main reason for the 4 stars is because I love how the story was adapted. The aspects of the story that were kept were great, and I love how different things were changed to fit the new setting - the way the curse was shown was really interesting, and I loved all the other creatures in the book.
I'm a little disappointed by the ending of this book, it all seemed to happen very quickly and was quite underwhelming, but overall I did like this book and I would definitely recommend it!
I struggled to decide whether or not to give this book a 3 or 4 star rating, but I think I'm leaning more towards 4. For the most of the first half of the book, nothing really seemed to happen - we were introduced to the character of Yeva and her family, which was a great way to get to know them, but they didn't actually do a whole lot.
The story didn't really pick up until Yerba was captured by the Beast, and even then it was still quite slow in parts since a lot of her time was spent doing the same things over and over. But the writing is really beautiful, and it was interesting to see how Yeva adapted to her new life in the castle and with the Beast.
I love the Beauty and the Beast story, so I went into this with certain expectations, and my main reason for the 4 stars is because I love how the story was adapted. The aspects of the story that were kept were great, and I love how different things were changed to fit the new setting - the way the curse was shown was really interesting, and I loved all the other creatures in the book.
I'm a little disappointed by the ending of this book, it all seemed to happen very quickly and was quite underwhelming, but overall I did like this book and I would definitely recommend it!
zoe_424's review against another edition
4.0
Thoroughly enjoyed this read! It is a slow burn but I was invested in the characters from the beginning.
hellobookbird's review against another edition
4.0
“She wept because she did not know what she wanted, and because she wanted everything.”
[b: Hunted|24485589|Hunted|Meagan Spooner|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1467052649s/24485589.jpg|44080112] is a beautifully haunting retelling of Beauty and the Beast that follows the bones of the story while spinning a tale that is completely new and fresh as snow. I think this easily tops my favorite retelling for this particular tale.
Rating: 4.5/5 stars.
Yeva is the youngest of three sisters (nicknamed "Beauty") and grew up hunting with her father, listening to tales of fantastical creatures that reside in their wood. She lives and breathes the forest and, if forced to marry, longs for a husband that will admire her for her skills. When tragedy strikes, and the family loses their fortune, they're forced to sell their belongings and move back into the hunting cabin from their youth.
When their father doesn't return from a hunting trip, Yeva fears the worst and leaves her beloved sisters to track him. What she finds is more than she bargained for...a beast unlike any other and a whole world full of creatures she believed only fairytale. Yeva is determined to kill the beast and return to her family but her quest to kill the seemingly unkillable creature unveils secrets that leaves her struggling to understand what to believe and what world she really belongs to.
Backdropped in a rural, Russian-esque universe, the cold, snow, and ice provide the perfect stage for the duality prevalent throughout the book. The winter forest is both merciless and unyielding, yet surreal and magical.
“The song wanted. It wanted in the way Yeva had always wanted, wanted not so much a thing as everything, something beyond naming, something more than, different, deeper. It was the want that kept her from saying yes to Solmir, though he offered her everything she could have named aloud; it was the want that brought her to the woods each day, the want that filled her dreams of some other life, something beyond what others desired; it was the want that screamed to the sky that she’d give everything, all of herself and all she’d ever be, to live one moment of that other life, the one she could not explain, not even to herself.”
Yeva is a wonderfully complex, flawed, and capable main character. She's torn between duty and caring for her family versus seeking the life she wants. The Beast, for once, is not a man transformed beastly but two warring souls cursed to be one. As such, the slow burn romance is more of a gradual awakening to a depth of feeling neither realized as Beast's human soul gradually strengths over the wolf. While told in Beauty's POV, you get snapshots of Beast's evolving mindset interspersed every couple of chapters and it is alien, wonderful, and super effective.
I loved how close Yeva was to her sisters. I loved that Yeva was a strong, capable heroine but still humanly flawed. I loved the Beast and his evolution. I loved that the book didn't sidestep major issues like possible Stockholm Syndrome. I loved the fairytales within a fairytale. Most of all, I love that the moral of the story is so different from the usual: that life isn't a fairytale at all.
“There's no such thing as living happily ever after — there's only living. We make the choice to do it happily.”
Recommended for everyone. Especially those who like fairytale retellings, complex characters, and well-written stories.
curles_and_curves's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I absolutely loved this book!
beereadsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
catgv's review against another edition
4.0
It took this book 201 pages to finally get to the real deal: magic. It was clearly dragging, though I enjoyed the romantic bits here and there. But as soon as it picked up, it was excellent! Everything happened in a whirlwind of magic, love, friendship, and loyalty! I loved the ending - so much that I now need Hunted on my own shelves.
Although I don't like hunting, I thought it was really well depicted and fitted this story. As for the heroine, Yeva (Beauty), she has such a strong will, yet has her heart in the right place. I had heard she was a strong heroine and I saw it for myself!
I also liked how we sometimes saw things from the Beast's POV as in a secret diary only we could read.
In conclusion, I didn't think much of the first 200 pages of the story (except for the great heroine and the emotional relationships she has with her family and prospect husband), but if you can push through it, I promise you the ending is mind-blowing. And if you're like me, someone who has a deep want in life (though you don't know for what) for something more, this book will hit right home. Because it did with me. I hope it does with you for never had I seen such a flawless description of that burning want.
This is a retelling of the beloved tale of Beauty & the Beast and it does its job as a ''new'' fairy tale fantastically.
Although I don't like hunting, I thought it was really well depicted and fitted this story. As for the heroine, Yeva (Beauty), she has such a strong will, yet has her heart in the right place. I had heard she was a strong heroine and I saw it for myself!
I also liked how we sometimes saw things from the Beast's POV as in a secret diary only we could read.
In conclusion, I didn't think much of the first 200 pages of the story (except for the great heroine and the emotional relationships she has with her family and prospect husband), but if you can push through it, I promise you the ending is mind-blowing. And if you're like me, someone who has a deep want in life (though you don't know for what) for something more, this book will hit right home. Because it did with me. I hope it does with you for never had I seen such a flawless description of that burning want.
This is a retelling of the beloved tale of Beauty & the Beast and it does its job as a ''new'' fairy tale fantastically.
eesh25's review against another edition
4.0
I'm a sucker for retelling. I freaking adore them (as long as I'm familiar with some other version of the tale). Prior to this, I've read three different Beauty and the Beast retellings. I liked only one of them, and that was a very cheesy version. This is most likely my favorite. But not just because I wasn't the biggest fan of two of the previous ones, but also because it's actually really good.
I finished reading this book about six days ago and have managed to kind of forget the things I didn't like about the novel. But not to worry, I'll remember while I'm writing the review. Until then, lets focus on the positives.
Hunted is more about the symbolic meaning behind the story and I really liked the way that was done. Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with direct-ish scenes from fairytales (the 'wolf impersonating grandma' scene in Scarlet was clever and epic) but I like symbolic cleverness as well.
It's inspired by the original French version, seeing as Beauty's father loses all his wealth in the beginning and the family (including Beauty's two older sisters) is forced to move to a cabin near the woods. There are other similarities, but those might be spoiler-y. The different element is that her father is a hunter who becomes obsessed with hunting a monster in the woods and when he goes missing, Beauty goes to find him.
Where it's similar to the Disney movie (or maybe some other version, there are a lot of them) is Beauty's desire to have more, to be more. In the movie, Belle reads book. Here, Beauty (or Yeva, her actual name) hunts and explores. But it's the same thing. Both Yeva and Belle want an adventure.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that this ticks the retelling box big time. Which is very important to me.
It also checks the well-written box and the interesting box and the un-put-down-able box; I read it in two sittings. I really liked the characters with their peculiar flaws and their surprising humanity. The topic of human contentment, how we always want more, is brilliantly featured.
Where there were problems... there was a secret that we, the reader, were told early on. And the author always dropped hints for Yeva about the secret in a way that made it seem as if she should have guessed it. They were not obvious hints, but written in a way that made you think Beauty was stupid or something. And I was like, why is the author trying to make Beauty look dumb? There could have been a simple solution, either don't tell the reader, make the hints less hint-y, or make the protagonist smarter.
The other problem was a little section before the end, when things winded down for a bit. There were a few chapters of playing house that made me impatient and annoyed. I get that it was a nod to the French tale, but still, couldn't they have been shorter?
Overall, this review seems like a disjointed mess to me, but I'm hoping I made the point I was trying to make. This is a very good novel, both on its own and as a retelling. I was quite surprised by it and I highly recommend checking it out.
P.S. Also inspired by Russian folklore but since I know next-to-nothing about that, I'm refraining from commenting.
rosemwood's review against another edition
5.0
This is a different version of Beauty and the Beast. There are no dancing teacups and arrogant jerks chasing Beauty. It is a magical love story. It is slow but that is what makes it so romantic.