Review: Kill Me Softly

Title: Kill Me  Softly
Author: Sarah Cross
Published: April 10th 2012
My Rating: 3 out of 5  stars


Goodreads Summary:

  Mirabelle's past is shrouded in secrecy, from her parents' tragic deaths to her guardians' half-truths about why she can't return to her birthplace, Beau Rivage. Desperate to see the town, Mira runs away a week before her sixteenth birthday—and discovers a world she never could have imagined.

In Beau Rivage, nothing is what it seems—the strangely pale girl with a morbid interest in apples, the obnoxious playboy who's a beast to everyone he meets, and the chivalrous guy who has a thing for damsels in distress. Here, fairy tales come to life, curses are awakened, and ancient stories are played out again and again.

But fairy tales aren't pretty things, and they don't always end in happily ever after. Mira has a role to play, a fairy tale destiny to embrace or resist. As she struggles to take control of her fate, Mira is drawn into the lives of two brothers with fairy tale curses of their own . . . brothers who share a dark secret. And she'll find that love, just like fairy tales, can have sharp edges and hidden thorns.

My Thoughts:

 Mirabelle Lively is just about to turn 16 years old and all her life she has been, told what to do and been overly protected by her fairy godmothers. All she wants is to see her parents graves, find out where they had lived, and to know them. Whenever she has asked about her parents or wanted to visit the town she was born in Beau Rivage, they refuse. So, if they won't let her go, she was determined to go on her own. In the middle of the night, with the help of a couple friends, Mira runs away from home and to the one place her godmother's never wanted her to go. Where she meets a cast of fairy tale characters. First, two brothers, one of them is charming and eager to help her and the other a rude and mean guy who is determined to get her to stay as far away from him and his brother as he can.

So, I didn't know what to expect when I got this book from netgalley but, I was really excited because I enjoy watching the show Once Upon a Time and it seemed like the  book would be similar. It was, in a few ways except these are the happy and fun filled Disney fairy tales that we grew up watching. They are the dark Grimm's fairytales. Now, I personally was not super familiar with most of these darker ones, but Sarah Cross does a good job of explaining a few and I enjoyed that aspect very much. I really liked Mira as a character, in the beginning of the story she was sheltered and had no idea what she was getting herself into by the time she arrived in the town of Beau Rivage and by the end of it, she has a home there and friends who mean the world to her. 

While reading this book I was torn, I don't know about you guys but I usually get so mad when I start a book and the main character (usually a girl) meets a guy and automatically fall in love with him, without knowing anything about him or what love really means. So, at first I was mad and I hate it when that happens but, the more I thought about it (and trust me I thought about it a lot while reading this book) It did make sense for her to fall in love without knowing much about the guy because to me at least in some of the fairytales that is what happens. Boy meets girl or, girl meets boy and they fall madly in love and live happily ever after. 

Overall, I really did enjoy this book, I felt like it was something new and different that I haven't normally read and I couldn't put the book down, I love it when two characters have a witty banter together that can make me smile and enjoy the book even more ( I always wish that I could be witty) It was fun picturing all the different fairytale characters in the different people she met throughout the story and learning about the darker versions of the fairytales.  I had so many thoughts and feelings going through my mind and that is what makes me really enjoy a book. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who loves fairy tales, enjoys the show Once Upon a Time, or just wants to read something out of the ordinary. It was a pretty quick and enjoyable read and I really hope that Sarah Cross continues to write books from this fairytale world she has created!!


-Kristin