Cruel Beauty: Rosamund Hodge

Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.
(Goodreads)

 So after reading and loving A Court of Thorns and Roses Cruel Beauty was recommended to me because of how amazing the story is. How strong the female character is, and the wonderful spin to the classic Beauty and the Beast.
Honestly? I was incredibly disappointed. The story in itself was incredibly interesting, it was rich and complex. It was dark and mysterious. The plot definitely had moments that it would drag on for pages and pages fully admit to skimming over these parts. And there were parts that were so intriguing I wish we could have learned more about it cough everything involving the world inside of a world plot and the labyrinth castle. Overall I'd give the plot a solid 3 since it was a pretty slow book that was super boring at times. But what really ruined the book for me was the character of Nyx, there was just something about her that I truly could not stand. She was kind of boring, and extremely self righteous. She was annoying, and her sister was equally annoying to. But the sister at least had the redeeming quality of actually loving Nyx and actually trying to save her even after all the hurtful things she said. 
But the real kicker was the ending. After Nyx fell in love with the beast and figured out that the shadow man is also part of him (I fully admit to loving the shadow man in the beginning, but once she saved the beast and he became nice I totally switched sides.) which took me forever to figure out too. He set her free, the world went back to how it was supposed to was when the plot took a turn for the weird. Obviously no one remembers because book logic's, but Nyx vaguely remembers something. More like she remembers missing someone. And now the castle is just an old myth about a cowardly king and she goes to find him because she knows there's more to the castle. Well she finds the king and the old ruler people things and bargains for the kings life. blah blah blah they argue it's weird...
And then...... the book ends..... Like that's it. There's really no closure and the book just had a weird ending.
Overall, not my favorite book. It was just weird and not the good kind of weird 
Anyway 
Until next time reader <3

Love Kat