Review: Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

Book: Kill Me Softly
By: Sarah Cross
Published: April 10, 2012
Published By: EgmontUSA

Description: 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: Kill Me Softly was an interesting take on Fairy Tales that I will remember long after I turned the last page.

We follow Mirabelle, a girl who lives with her two godmothers and who's 16th birthday is coming up. She desperately wants to go back to Beau Rivage, the place where her parents died a tragic death, and the one place her godmothers forbid her to go. She decides to run away and go there, as a birthday gift to herself. There she finds out that fairy tales are real, and must decide her fate.

I thought the story was pretty good, though I didn't much like Mirabelle in the beginning. She was a bit dumb to me. I mean, who follows a random guy to a room in a town where she knows no one? Who goes out with a guy who bursts into your room in the middle of the night and claims you need to leave? Who decides 10pm at night is a great time to wander in a cemetery, alone, in a town where fairy tales are real and no one knows  where you're going? She makes stupid decisions like these and others that just make me wonder about her common sense and self preservation. I just didn't like her at all. I did, however like the fairy tales in the story and how real the author made them. These weren't Disney's fairy tales either, there weren't very many happy endings. Still it was interesting to read and I really enjoyed it.

I give this story 3 stars. Though I really enjoyed how the author made the tales come to life, I can't get past how naive Mirabelle was. It really bothered me and a lot of her decision making skills really grated on me. It almost made me put this one down, but I stuck through it because I saw all the glowing reviews and knew that at least some of the things bothering me would be answered at the end. If your a fan of modern twists on old tales, pick this one up.