As I was reading it, it became more and more apparent it was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast which happens to be one of my favorite fairytales. However, the pacing is almost painfully slow. It wouldn’t be until the last third of the book that my interests reignited. I did nearly stay up all night reading it at that point. Maas has a eloquent writing style, she’s almost poetic in the way she describes this beautiful fantasy world and it’s inhabitants.

I’m interested to know what the other books have in store. I was afraid that I wasn’t enjoying the book and I had already bought the second in the series. By the end of this book, I bought the third and fourth. As someone on the asexual spectrum, I appreciate the slow burn of the romance and taking the time to fall in love before getting to the smutty side of things. However, now I’m thoroughly invested emotionally in this relationship, I expect more love scenes to come. My grandmother began reading this series last year, and stated she mistakenly read the second book first, but had she read the first one first, she doesn’t think she’d have continued with the series. So apparently, it gets even more interesting.