Originally posted at The Wandering Fangirl.

I had ridiculously high hopes for this, because if there’s anything that hits one of my reading buttons hardest, it’s fairytale/myth re-tellings. I love them. So hearing all about a whole city of fairy tales just waiting to happen? Yes please. Kill Me Softly starts out pretty strong as Mirabelle runs away from home (and her two fairy godmothers) to Beau Rivage, the town she was born in and the town her parents died in. What she finds is a whole fairy tale sub-culture, which is so cool. All these kids are marked and simply waiting for their fates. Most of them hate being trapped by destiny, and as much as they rage, they’ve surrendered to the fact that they’ll be a Snow White or a Prince Charming or a Beauty and her Beast when they come of age.

Apart from that, however, the book doesn’t hold up at all. Mirabelle rapidly devolves into the most annoying of YA tropes – the one who falls into instant love with someone, while still intrigued by another. Love triangles, man. I hate them. She doesn’t do much of anything, and it seems all she does is go somewhere, listen to someone give her some exposition, then do more of nothing. It got tiring very quickly, and no matter how much I loved the idea of Beau Rivage, I couldn’t keep reading it.