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sarahkhan27 's review for:
Kill Me Softly
by Sarah Cross
Mira's parents were killed in a tragic fire when she was young. She's grown up with her godmothers who refuse to tell her anything about her past and forbid her from going back to Beau Rivage- her birthplace. So before her sixteenth birthday, Mira runs away. She runs away to find out the truth about what happened to her parents. And to discover a place where fairy tales are real. Just as real as curses.
This wasn't a terrible book. The idea was a good one. I love modern-day fairy tales so this was right up my alley. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the book is filled with absolutely nothing. But let's start with the good:
1) Character development. TONS of it. If nothing else, you at least knew the characters inside and out. You were constantly in their heads and there's a good amount of character growth throughout the book. Mira kind of has to "learn the hard way" at some points, and I was initially baffled by her stupidity (was I that dumb at 16?) but other things in the book made up for it.
2) The interwoven fairy tales. I would find this incredibly difficult to do. Cross managed to tie in several fairy tales together and have them all come to life in Beau Rivage. She made them very real- and very terrifying. I LOVED her take on Snow White (Mira is not Snow White by the way) because I never once thought of the ending that way- I always saw it as so perfect and wonderful (thanks Disney :P). I love the Disney films but this was darker and more realistic.
3) The very impressive twist. I was wondering how one aspect of the book would tie in with the other- and Cross managed it really creatively! I really loved that part of the book and was grinning after I finished that chapter. How cool! I wish I could've thought of something like that!
The bad:
1) Apart from the very ending, the rest of the book (the other 340 pages of it) were completely boring. NOTHING happened. There was SO much talking that I wanted to smack my head against the book and make it disappear. <_< When would it be OVER already so I could move on to other books? I was VERY tempted to just cheat and stop reading and skim through the rest to find out what happened at the end. I just didn't care about the billion pointless conversations everyone was having. I think it did wonders for character development but nothing for plot, and I honestly read mostly for plot.
2) Character annoyances. Mira was tolerable albeit an idiot at times (or maybe a good-looking guy paying attention to you just turns you into one?) but her constant back-and-forth between two brothers was not only annoying but tiresome. I didn't want to read 20 pages about her evening out with one guy only to come back and read another 20 pages about her wonderful time with the brother. And that was the entire book. UNTIL the very end. Which was much more horrifying than I expected but we're not going to talk about that now because I'm writing this review at 1:33 a.m. and I'll get too scared to go to sleep. O_O
3) The ending. While the ending satisfied me, I felt there was a part of it that was hurriedly thrown together just to make readers happy. I felt it was...sloppy. Not well-thought out. Kind of out of place. I can see why Cross would do it (I can surely imagine the complaints if she didn't) but it happened SO quickly (literally the last two pages) that I felt like maybe it was a last-second decision to throw it in there.
In a nutshell, this book was a good idea with a lot of filler. It could've been done in 100 pages and kept me interested and happy. Instead it was done in 400 for no reason whatsoever. Read it if you want!
This wasn't a terrible book. The idea was a good one. I love modern-day fairy tales so this was right up my alley. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the book is filled with absolutely nothing. But let's start with the good:
1) Character development. TONS of it. If nothing else, you at least knew the characters inside and out. You were constantly in their heads and there's a good amount of character growth throughout the book. Mira kind of has to "learn the hard way" at some points, and I was initially baffled by her stupidity (was I that dumb at 16?) but other things in the book made up for it.
2) The interwoven fairy tales. I would find this incredibly difficult to do. Cross managed to tie in several fairy tales together and have them all come to life in Beau Rivage. She made them very real- and very terrifying. I LOVED her take on Snow White (Mira is not Snow White by the way) because I never once thought of the ending that way- I always saw it as so perfect and wonderful (thanks Disney :P). I love the Disney films but this was darker and more realistic.
3) The very impressive twist. I was wondering how one aspect of the book would tie in with the other- and Cross managed it really creatively! I really loved that part of the book and was grinning after I finished that chapter. How cool! I wish I could've thought of something like that!
The bad:
1) Apart from the very ending, the rest of the book (the other 340 pages of it) were completely boring. NOTHING happened. There was SO much talking that I wanted to smack my head against the book and make it disappear. <_< When would it be OVER already so I could move on to other books? I was VERY tempted to just cheat and stop reading and skim through the rest to find out what happened at the end. I just didn't care about the billion pointless conversations everyone was having. I think it did wonders for character development but nothing for plot, and I honestly read mostly for plot.
2) Character annoyances. Mira was tolerable albeit an idiot at times (or maybe a good-looking guy paying attention to you just turns you into one?) but her constant back-and-forth between two brothers was not only annoying but tiresome. I didn't want to read 20 pages about her evening out with one guy only to come back and read another 20 pages about her wonderful time with the brother. And that was the entire book. UNTIL the very end. Which was much more horrifying than I expected but we're not going to talk about that now because I'm writing this review at 1:33 a.m. and I'll get too scared to go to sleep. O_O
3) The ending. While the ending satisfied me, I felt there was a part of it that was hurriedly thrown together just to make readers happy. I felt it was...sloppy. Not well-thought out. Kind of out of place. I can see why Cross would do it (I can surely imagine the complaints if she didn't) but it happened SO quickly (literally the last two pages) that I felt like maybe it was a last-second decision to throw it in there.
In a nutshell, this book was a good idea with a lot of filler. It could've been done in 100 pages and kept me interested and happy. Instead it was done in 400 for no reason whatsoever. Read it if you want!