Author: Megan Shepherd
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 376
Rating: 2/5 stars
Synopsis:
“Seventeen-year-old Anouk envies the human world, where people known as Pretties lavish themselves in fast cars, high fashion, and have the freedom to fall in love. But Anouk can never have those things, because she is not really human. Enchanted from animal to human girl and forbidden to venture beyond her familiar Parisian prison, Anouk is a Beastie: destined for a life surrounded by dust bunnies and cinders serving Mada Vittora, the evil witch who spelled her into existence. That is, until one day she finds her mistress murdered in a pool of blood—and Anouk is accused of the crime.
Now, the world she always dreamed of is rife with danger. Pursued through Paris by the underground magical society known as the Haute, Anouk and her fellow Beasties only have three days to find the real killer before the spell keeping them human fades away. If they fail, they will lose the only lives they’ve ever known…but if they succeed, they could be more powerful than anyone ever bargained for.
From New York Times bestselling author Megan Shepherd, Grim Lovelies is an epic and glittering YA fantasy. Prepare to be spellbound by the world of Grim Lovelies, where secrets have been long buried, friends can become enemies, and everything—especially humanity—comes at a price. ”
I’m having a ton of mixed feelings about this book. I was expecting a lot more from this story when I went into it and now I feel pretty disappointed. There were so many magical things about this book that I thoroughly enjoyed but a fair amount of others that left me feeling pretty bitter.
The concept of this world was amazing, and easily one of my favorite things about Grim Lovelies. The magic system is unique and extremely well developed. I loved how the magical world was developed and brought to life. From the beasties to the vitae echo to consuming something to produce magic was all brilliant! Unfortunately, there wasn’t much else I enjoyed in the story.
For me, it felt like every element I enjoyed in the story went down hill by the end. This is pretty much what happened with the characters for me. I really loved Anouk in the beginning. She was this cunning force trapped within an innocent mind. But by the time the book was ending I had a hard time understanding her choices and I found her annoying. The worse character to me was Beau who made me want to scream at him. When I started reading this book I was already planning a part of my review to complain about a “best friend is in love with the protagonist who has no idea” trope but it instead went past that by turning into a weirdly executed romance with no chemistry. The romance weighed the story down for me and is one of the many reasons I fell out of love with the characters. The romance itself felt pointless as Anouk didn’t seem to care for Beau and Beau himself made a lot of dumb mistakes that make me believe he didn’t care much for Anouk either. Dear Beau, your actions speak so much louder than your words.
The plot of this story was okay but it was painful predictable and just frustrated me more. None of the twists got to me and the fact that all the characters were oblivious to reality just plain annoying. By the time the climax rolled around I had fallen so far from loving this story that I couldn’t be bothered with how exactly things played out. I have to say though, I am SLIGHTLY interested in seeing where the rest of this story goes. Even now I am still holding out some hope that the second book in this duology will save the story. I guess time will tell.
From the Library of Alexis 