Kill Me Softly

Fairytales and more fairytales! I can’t get enough. I love them. I collect fairytale books. Grimm, Hans, and everything in between. I devour them. I would read fairytales and their retellings all day every day if I could. I had first heard of this book through GoodReads and put it on my to-read and to buy list. Then I stumbled upon a blog on Tumblr called fairytalemood and learned that it’s run by the author. I finally managed to find a copy of the book and I quickly devoured it.

My favorite thing about the book was it’s creativity. The plot reminded me a lot of the television show Once Upon a Time, since there are so many fairytale characters in once town. There are Snow Whites, Sleeping Beauties, Beasts, Belles, Red Riding Hoods and everything in between. And there are curses. With so many different fairytale characters and their stories in one place, it had the chance of being clustered, of being a mess, but the author made it make sense. It flowed and blended together perfectly that didn’t leave me confused at all.

In Beau Rivage, some residence are cursed. Some are Romantics, some are Honour-Bound, as well as a slew of other little categories they could fit into. Mira, the main character, has a tale of her own. A curse of her own. But she had no idea. She had absolutely no idea who or what she was when she entered Beau Rivage. She only went to the city because in search of her dead parent’s graves. It was interesting to follow her on her path. She found out who and what she was and she took measures to protect herself from it. She fell in love. Though, admittedly I thought the insta-love was a bit nauseating but she learned from it and I suppose that is the point. Still, it annoyed me greatly that she always crawled back to Felix, even when she learned something not-so-great about her prince charming.

The other people she met along the way were equally fascinating. Blue, Viv, Freddie, Jewel, Henley, Rafe, Felix… all of them cursed, all of them equally complex and interesting. I hope that in sequel or companion novels we learn more about them. Blue and Felix were a very big part of the plot in Kill Me Softly but I would still like to know more of their history. Especially Felix’s for reasons I will not say because that would lead me to spoil and I don’t want to do that! But he’s fascinating. He seems to accept his curse, rather than want to change things. It’s a part of him and he let’s it come. I think he even enjoys it, to be honest. The brother relationship of him and Blue was also curious. They share the same curse but they could not be more opposite and yet they still love each other and look out for each other.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. I thought the ending was a little rush, and a little too neat but the story and the characters were so great that it was merely a little scratch on my overall enjoyment of it. There is mystery, there is good humor, love, darkness and everything in between. Kill Me Softly was a fun novel to read that leaves you turning page after page. If you love fairytales, suspense and good characters, definitely pick it up.

Mirabelle is a runaway who feels the need to find her parents' graves. Unfortunately she ends up meeting the wrong people living completely manipulated lives who either wish to do her harm or destroy her prior life. She's escaped her godmothers' super protective arms just to find herself stuck in an inevitable destiny (with it comes a deadly lover, a mysterious, hot, annoying, blue-spike-haired boy, and a sweet destiny-fulfilling knight). This is where fairy tales turn into horror stories, fairies turn into manipulative monsters, lovers turn into murderers, bad guys turn into heroes, and princesses turn into every day teenagers.
Kill Me Softly was a great read. I was biting my finger nails and laughing out loud half the time.
It was truly remarkable how fairy tales can be twisted so much. And some new tales come into play as well. There's also a sort of square-love thingy. Three boys all in love with Mara. Sadly, two of them are brothers cursed forever and the other one is awaiting to fulfill his destiny. This book was truly amazing. The story line really grabs attention.
The only faults were that Mara was a little bit too stubborn and completely blind to a jerk's charming appearance. She acted like a love-sick puppy half the time, but the rest of the story made up for it.
I really recommend this story to anyone who enjoys a good twist. It's definitely a worthy read.

Looking at the cover of Kill Me Softly you probably aren’t imagining the story inside to be so dark (despite the blood), but it is. Oh, by golly, it is. Incredibly, deliciously dark.

The first third of the book wasn’t so awesome for me. I spent it being astounded by Mira’s stupidity and unwillingness to question things. I mean, I understand Felix has magic working on his side, but come on. He’s 21, you’re a few days shy of sixteen and you just crawl in bed with him after a few hours spent together? Where is your brain, Mira?! And then when everyone is telling her he has a curse she’s all “but this is true love and you wouldn’t understand!” instead of digging a little deeper to find out exactly what this curse is.

BUT, then things start to clear up. Then we start learning about the curses and the fairytales, and let me tell you, it’s pretty gruesome. It’s one thing to read the fairytales and think they’re dark, but it’s another to think about applying it to life today. And I absolutely love how Cross weaved the fairytales into modern life.

Then there’s Blue. Oh, Blue. I kind of loved him from the start even though he acted like a complete jerk for a while. The poor guy is just so tortured and selfless. If you’re looking for a noble knight in hiding, look no further than Blue.

Felix, on the other hand, always just felt a little slimy to me. And, in my opinion, he is, but I’ll let you make that decision for yourself without ruining anything ;]

Mira became a much more complex and likable character by the end of the story which I greatly appreciated. Instead of continuing on the lovesick puppy path she starts to actually question things and search out answers.

SPOILER
I’m feeling pretty torn about the ending, though. On the one hand, I loved it. On the other, well, let’s break it down:
-- Umm, hello, what about Felix? It alluded to the fact that he’d need to be killed, but we’re just going to end the story with him wandering around with his head intact? Not cool. I was really looking forward to seeing a fight with him.
-- What about our poor knight, Freddie? I know he already knew Mira didn’t like him that way, but what is he supposed to do with his life now? He’s spent years looking for his princess and when he finds her she runs straight into the arms of another guy. That definitely deserved some follow up.
-- The elusive parents? I know it’d be long and complicated to build a relationship between them and Mira, but all I’m asking for is one little meeting. I just wanted to meet them!
-- What’s up with her fairy godmothers saying something about fairy prison? They act like we should know what rules they broke and what trouble they’d get in instead of just telling us. Not cool.

I know I can’t have everything, but that’s a lot of stuff to introduce only to leave unanswered.
END SPOILER

The Nutshell: If you love your fairytales dark then you’ll definitely like Kill Me Softly. The story is complex and fascinating and it’ll really make you question right and wrong (at least, it did me).

Direct Hit

First of all, I thought the cover has this sort of simple beauty to it. At first I thought it may be something like Alice in Wonderland because of the red liquid on the rose. I seriously didn't look like blood, so I automatically assumed it was paint of some sort. [insert very un-ladylike snort] I was so off.

Kill Me Softly is a mishmash of all sorts of fairy tales with the ugly bits left in. If you watched the Disney movies instead of reading the original fairy tales, you probably don't know that, say, for example the mermaid didn't get the prince and was instead forced to commit suicide. Or that Cinderella's step-sisters cut of parts of their feet in an attempt to fit into the glass slipper. Creepy, but for some reason I think I like those versions better. More real, with gruesome sacrifices mixed in.

Honestly, I want to thank Sarah Cross so much for shining a spotlight on little-known fairy tales, like Bluebeard.

Mira, the protagonist, was nicely written, although a bit more information about her past would be interesting. She was just a little predictable, always returning to Felix, doing what the fairy tale requires of her, but I thought that Sarah Cross made her predictability work very well. And there's the Valentine brothers, Felix and Blue. I was very pleased with the usage of foreshadowing with Felix and Blue's hair. Y'know, blue hair, Bluebeard? Nevermind. Felix was a tad too perfect for my taste, and I kind of didn't get how Mira just fell in love. Yes, they talked, Felix was a perfect gentleman, but there was nothing substantial in it. If anyone could feel like that slimy dude that tries to pick a chick up before the hero swoops in, it's Felix. Lastly, Blue. He's so much more real than Felix. He shared his happiness, sadness, desperation, and pain with Mira, and didn't give her the princess treatment. He took her places, introduced friends to her, and kept her at arm's length with a very good, bot nonetheless tragic reason. Although Blue hid so many truths from Mira, he as a whole seemed true, and honest in a way by letting her take a few glimpses into his world.

With the secondary characters, you can actually see how their curses affect their lives, and gives off an idea of how it'll happen. They're all amazingly alive ticking time bombs.

As a conclusion, I've not much to say but I am in LOVE with Kill Me Softly, and hope you liked/will like it, too.

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I was browsing around Tumblr attempting to find like-minded souls the other day, and I came across the blog “Fairy Tale Mood”, which is curated by author Sarah Cross. I followed the links to her personal blog, on which I found out about her newest novel, “Kill Me Softly.” It is a fairy tale retelling, so of course I had to read it, and I immediately downloaded it onto my Kindle app and dug in.

Allow me to preface this by saying that I have readmanyfairy-tale retelling as “research” for my own novel, “The Spirit Thief” (available on Kindle in August). I have read very good retellings (“Beauty” by Robin McKinley) and very bad retellings (“Mermaid” by Carolyn Turgeon). I was eager to discover into which category “Kill Me Softly” would fall, and it was clear quite early that it fell into the “good” category.

The story begins with Mirabelle Lively and her two godmothers, who are bickering about what color to make her birthday cake - pink or blue. Though it is simply portrayed as completely natural and the portraits of the two godmother are so well drawn, it immediately sets the tone for where this book is heading (because of course, anyone who has seen the Disney version of “Sleeping Beauty” recognizes the ‘pink vs. blue’ argument). Mira decides to run away to her birthplace, where she believes her parents died in a fire at her christening party. She has always longed to see Beau Rivage, although she has been kept from going there by her godmothers. She leaves an impressive rabbit trail for her godmothers to follow while she runs off to Beau Rivage.

While in Beau Rivage, Mira discovers her true identity and destiny as a fairy tale Somnolent, and she finds herself making friends with a variety of residents of Beau Rivage, all of whom have different fairy tale destinies that they are bound to follow. Mira also falls in with Felix Valentine, the owner of a casino in town called “The Dream”. His younger brother, Blue, and the rest of Mira’s new friends warn her to stay away from him, but they will not tell her why. Mira refuses to let go of her ‘love’ for Felix, but she can’t help but feel attracted to Blue as well. Though the fairy tale destinies of her new friends are revealed, Blue and Felix’s story remains a mystery because it may not be spoken of. As her sixteenth birthday draws closer, Mira begins to fear her destiny and wonder how she could ever possibly fit in in Beau Rivage.

Overall, the story was very well-written. I think my favorite part of the writing would be the dialogue between the young characters. It came across as natural and unforced, and I did laugh out loud sometimes. I also found that the characters were developed nicely. Though everyone had their ‘destinies’ and fairy tales that they belonged to, they each tried to fight their stories and struggled to still be themselves in the face of their fates. I would say my least favorite character was Freddie, who was an Honor-bound prince. He was so soft and ‘guileless’ that it was difficult to like him. I preferred his brother, Wills, who didn’t seem so naive. Mira drove me crazy at times, but I didn’t mind because I often like stories best when the main character doesn’t always make the right choices despite everything that she is told. There was so much wrong about her relationship with Felix that I couldn’t believe she couldn’t see it for herself … but that was what made her believable and honest.

This may be personal on my part, but I do sort of wish that the revelations of the characters had been a bit more subtle. As I said before, I have read so many fairy tales and retellings of them that I can recognize them quickly, and I would have appreciated more subtlety during the introductions of some of the characters. For example, I knew instantly who Viv, Layla, Rafe, and Jewel were. I think Mira’s fate was revealed at a decent pace (I didn’t want to make any assumptions about her), and Blue and Felix definitely kept me guessing. I realize once I reached the end that Ihadspeculated about their fate, but I hadn’t really been sure until all the facts came out. So, the author did a great job there.

I think my biggest critique about the whole book would be the ending. It wasn’t completely unsatisfying, but I felt like it was a bit unfinished. The bad guy wasn’t completely defeated and the truth about Mira’s parents was never resolved. The author hasn’t revealed yet that she plans a sequel to “Kill Me Softly”, though she’s indicated that she may write other books located in Beau Rivage. Perhaps she plans to address these unsolved issues in those follow-ups, if not a direct sequel. Like I said, I wasn’t upset when I finished reading the book, but I did feel that there were some loose ends that were not tied up. Other than that, I enjoyed the book and definitely think it’s worth reading if you’re interested in fairy tale retellings - it takes a new, fresh, and modern approach to the genre. It is certainly on my list of books to recommend.