Reviewed by reveriesociety_ on
If you've stuck around with me for a while, you might have noticed that I have a thing for retellings. I even recently binge read the Lunar Chronicles, and I really enjoyed that series. As for Beauty and the Beast retellings, one of my favorites is Stacey Jay's Of Beast and Beauty.
Now, let me introduce you to Withering Rose, a book I dove into with -I gotta admit- low expectations, but walked away from feeling quite satisfied as a bookworm.
My Thoughts
Rocky beginning
I went into this book reading it as a standalone, since I hadn't read the first book. So at first, I was a little confused about what was happening. Because I didn't remember the synopsis very well either. That little detail that an earthquake meshes together Earth, with the magical, kingdoms/kings/faeries filled world the protagonist comes from.
Suspension of disbelief was hard at this stage. I even considered quitting for a moment, but I pushed on, and I'm glad I did.
Omorose just wasn't cutting it for me. First, I didn't even like her name. Rose is common, but bearable, but Omorose is asking too much. Secondly, she was meek, and miserable, and that's depressing-understandable, of course since according to what she described, there's a rose inside of her that's basically counting the time until she dies. ( I still don't get that rose thing. Is it a metaphor? Or literally, there is a flower in her chest? o_0 Will never know.)
Depressing anyway.
The intrigue
When our brave Omorose *giggle* Okay, when our brave Omorose embarks in her adventure and ends up in a strange, foreign castle, finally I was hooked. Maybe it was the sense that this new environment she was in was more medieval-like, and something I was familiar with, not the half and half world I'd been reading about before. But the thing is, that things got better from there.
Th beast
*heart eyes* Some people might not like that there are some scenes that are so very much like the Disney animated version the The Beauty and the Beast, but I loved them! I don't want to spoil anything so I'm just going to say the romance is so heart-warming, and I'm happy with it, but I also wish it'd taken up a teensy bit more of page time because I just loved it so much!
Final thoughts
In spite of its many sins, I enjoyed Withering Rose and I would really recommend it. :3
Read Withering Rose if:
*You're a beast ;)
*You're beautiful
*You don't give a damn ;)
*You want to be a rainbow unicorn
*You like character development
*You like fairy tale retellings
*You like series
*You like standalones
*You like omelet (You'll get it when you read it XD)
Find this review and others at A Writer's Tales
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 23 June, 2016: Finished reading
- 23 June, 2016: Reviewed