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samantha_randolph 's review for:
Crimson Bound
by Rosamund Hodge
Short and Sweet:
Oh look, there goes my heart getting caught in the pages of another Rosamund Hodge book.
To Elaborate….
I always say reviews for books I love are the hardest for me to write, and that is 100% true for Crimson Bound. Sabrina was SO SWEET to grab an ARC of this for me at a book event longgggg ago, and I really debated over when to read it. I got it right before starting work on my thesis, in which I used Hodge’s other book, Cruel Beauty, and I was worried I would get the stories mixed up or that it would influence me in a way I didn’t want. So, I ended up making a decision to not read any other books from the authors I used in my thesis while working on my thesis (authors were Hodge, Alex Flinn, and Stacey Jay), AND I wouldn’t read any other Beauty and the Beast retellings because that was the subject of my thesis.
Now, I am exhausted and thrilled that my thesis is turned in, and I can FINALLY catch up with these authors, and I had to start with Crimson Bound. I was super nervous going into it because Cruel Beauty has had such an impact on me that I was worried Crimson Bound might not be as good. After literally sitting in my room for hours not able to put this book down, I am happy to say that I loved Crimson Bound every bit as much as Cruel Beauty, though in different ways.
If you’ve read Cruel Beauty, you know it focuses very heavily on the romance, since B&tB is a romance. Crimson Bound is a retelling/mash up of Little Red Riding Hood and The Girl with No Hands, so while it has romance (and um, hella sexual tension, heck yes), the action/adventure is the center of this show. The fighting scenes remind me of the ones in Throne of Glass in terms of intensity/badass warriorness. I LOVE the world building and the mystery behind the Great Forest. Everything comes together so beautifully, and I gasped out loud several times with my mouth hanging open like a fish after some of the twists.
More than anything, what makes my heart absolutely swell with happiness in this book (and in Cruel Beauty) is that we have a female protagonist who is not so nice. Rachelle makes some bad decisions, some hard decisions, and some highly morally ambiguous decisions, and I love her all the more for it. In Hodge’s stories, there is never a main character who is anything less than thought-provokingly complex and neither wholly good nor wholly bad. I want to see so many characters like Rachelle who are strong, wicked, fierce, loyal, and hopeful.
This book has turned me into a puddle of feels, and I can’t recommend it enough!
Originally posted at The Forest of Words and Pages: http://www.forestofwordsandpages.com/2015/10/review-crimson-bound-by-rosamund-hodge/
Oh look, there goes my heart getting caught in the pages of another Rosamund Hodge book.
To Elaborate….
I always say reviews for books I love are the hardest for me to write, and that is 100% true for Crimson Bound. Sabrina was SO SWEET to grab an ARC of this for me at a book event longgggg ago, and I really debated over when to read it. I got it right before starting work on my thesis, in which I used Hodge’s other book, Cruel Beauty, and I was worried I would get the stories mixed up or that it would influence me in a way I didn’t want. So, I ended up making a decision to not read any other books from the authors I used in my thesis while working on my thesis (authors were Hodge, Alex Flinn, and Stacey Jay), AND I wouldn’t read any other Beauty and the Beast retellings because that was the subject of my thesis.
Now, I am exhausted and thrilled that my thesis is turned in, and I can FINALLY catch up with these authors, and I had to start with Crimson Bound. I was super nervous going into it because Cruel Beauty has had such an impact on me that I was worried Crimson Bound might not be as good. After literally sitting in my room for hours not able to put this book down, I am happy to say that I loved Crimson Bound every bit as much as Cruel Beauty, though in different ways.
If you’ve read Cruel Beauty, you know it focuses very heavily on the romance, since B&tB is a romance. Crimson Bound is a retelling/mash up of Little Red Riding Hood and The Girl with No Hands, so while it has romance (and um, hella sexual tension, heck yes), the action/adventure is the center of this show. The fighting scenes remind me of the ones in Throne of Glass in terms of intensity/badass warriorness. I LOVE the world building and the mystery behind the Great Forest. Everything comes together so beautifully, and I gasped out loud several times with my mouth hanging open like a fish after some of the twists.
More than anything, what makes my heart absolutely swell with happiness in this book (and in Cruel Beauty) is that we have a female protagonist who is not so nice. Rachelle makes some bad decisions, some hard decisions, and some highly morally ambiguous decisions, and I love her all the more for it. In Hodge’s stories, there is never a main character who is anything less than thought-provokingly complex and neither wholly good nor wholly bad. I want to see so many characters like Rachelle who are strong, wicked, fierce, loyal, and hopeful.
This book has turned me into a puddle of feels, and I can’t recommend it enough!
Originally posted at The Forest of Words and Pages: http://www.forestofwordsandpages.com/2015/10/review-crimson-bound-by-rosamund-hodge/