ARC Review--Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

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.

I received this e-ARC from the publisher via Netgalley

Sara Cross's Kill Me Softly had real potential! The storyline was fantastic, engaging and intriguing! I loved the idea she had with the whole fairy tale concept in that people in Beau Rivage are all likely some form of a fairy tale person. There are Snow Whites running about, evil stepmothers here and there and some Cinderellas getting ready for whatever ball!

So there are a lot of fairy tales going on. It's a curse on them, either by a good fairy or bad and they are forced to live a life of their chosen fairy tale person. Mira doesn't know any of this at the beginning. In fact she comes to Beau Rivage days before her sixteenth birthday wanting to find her parents' graves for they died when she as young and her over protective godmothers never let her do anything, so she rebels, runs away and does the one thing they never wanted her to do.

Like I said, I really liked how Cross wove in the fairy tales in the book. All the characters had their own traits and you could pretty much tell who they were from what fairy tale. I knew almost all of them too! Loooooved seeing some of the lesser known classics. Although at times they seemed to be getting mixed up with Disney and their original tale, like Beauty aka Belle did live with her father and had an affinity for books which was Disney, but she knew that one day her father would steal a rose from "the Beast" and she would have to go live with the Beast, tame him into becoming a man again--which is a mesh of both fairy tale and Disney for in the fairy tale the father came upon the castle and took shelter there, which the Beast gave freely, but when the father stole a rose from the garden that's when the Beast went nuts!

Blue was definitely one of my fave characters! He was one I couldn't quite place right away since it had been years since I read my fairy tales but once his character was revealed, things got really interesting! He also has a twin brother, Felix, so yeah, love triangle ahoy! I really liked Blue better from the beginning. He was extreme but sincere.

Now onto what I didn't like about this read and that was Mira herself. I'm use to my heroines being strong or at least trying to be strong and not so naive. I felt that Mira was a bit naive and selfish. I mean she runs away in the middle of the night when she's 15! She's not 16 yet and here she's trying to be all mature and adult like, but her actions were just too childish for my liking. And then she insists that's she in love with Felix. That she knows him and blah blah blah--note she does just meet this guy early on in the book. So yeah, that's Disney right there, falling in love without really knowing someone!

But she's constantly told not to do this or that--which I admit would bug me too--yet she still does what she is not supposed to do. I don't know really. I just felt like Mira had no backbone. She did grow a little towards the end, but it was the very end. And I just didn't care for her actions. And naturally, like I said, there's a love triangle and while throughout the book she was feeling things for both guys, she leaned towards the other. Until one moment, then bam, she was all over the other guy and the "love" she felt for the first one is gone. It just nagged at me. I know love triangles work that way sometimes, but I just didn't like it.

So while the plot was really good and the pacing was good and the secondary characters were good, I just did not care for the main character/heroine. I felt like she was just too young and naive, easily manipulated. Which I suppose is fine in a way since she is only 15, but I just expected that the girl who's running away would have a little more backbone so she could survive. But everything else about the book was awesome! And I will say that it was only occasional moments that Mira bugged me, not all the time. Mostly just when she started going on her love for boy A or boy B! 

And there were a few things left hanging towards the end, a few unresolved issues, so maybe the next book, if there is one, will be better! Would have no idea what kind of adventures Mira would have next though!

Overall rating 3.5/5 stars

Kill Me Softly releases April 10, 2012