Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
This was a lovely YA novel. I thought it was a storylover's dream because it amalgamates so many of the stories that are familiar to most people raised in a Western atmosphere and probably a lot of people who weren't. This novel integrates Celtic and Greek mythologies with Rumplestiltskin, Bluebeard, and Beauty and the Beast. I'm sure there are other stories that were woven into the intricate tapestry of Cruel Beauty that I was just not cool enough to pick up on.
I loved the characters in this story because they weren't entirely loveable. Everyone in the story is incredibly flawed, and everyone in the story has at least one endearing quality.
Nyx is intelligent, brave, strong, dutiful and... bitter! I like that she has a real darkness inside herself that she comes to grips with. All of the players in Cruel Beauty's plot are like that, they seem rather simple at first glance but through the events of the story the reader comes to see that, while their initial impressions weren't wrong, the characters are a lot more than what they originally seemed, kind of like people...
Nyx is upset that she is made to marry the ruthless magical tyrant that reigns over Arcadia because of the reckless bargain her father made before she was even born, but she is determined to make the most of her marriage by saving her land from their overlord's spell. She plans on seducing him, gaining his trust, and destroying his house with him inside, but when she is given to the Gentle Lord and slowly begins to unravel the truth of The Sundering she falls in love with him.
This book was pretty awesome but it was made even better (I think, I'm just guessing here because I have only done it one way) by the vocal talent of Elizabeth Knowelden. I liked listening to her voice, I felt that the fact that the book was from first person perspective worked well with her reading of the book's characters' idioms and attitudes without changing her voice very much. To me it seemed as if Nyx was telling the story and doing poor mimicry of the others in the story.
Some things I didn't like about it were that the world was not built up enough for me. We got glimpses of religion, politics, and magic, but it was all really focused directly on the plot and so I don't really know what is going on in the world. If this is a series, then I hope this is expanded upon in later volumes. The story is pretty self-contained though so I don't know that it will be a series, what suggests that to me is the fact that a novella exists by the same author that is dubbed "a Cruel Beauty novella" so if that's a thing, then a sequel might be also. I wanted to know more about hermetic workings especially. Nyx talked about nullifying, and balance, and referred to things as hermetic whatevers (replace whatevers with saying, device, study, experiment, etc.) so Hermeticism definitely occupies a significant place in society. Additionally, while I did enjoy this story I have to say I could have done with less of it. Parts felt drawn out that didn't need to be, like the ending, and many of Nyx's lamentations about her thoughts and feelings.
All in all a pretty good book. I enjoyed it a lot and appreciated all the allusion and homage to familiar stories incorporated.