ARC Review: Hunted by Meagan Spooner

Hunted
Author: Meagan Spooner
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Retelling, Beauty and the Beast
Release Date: March 14th 2017
Book Length: 384

Publisher: HarperTeen

Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them.

So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance.

Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

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Review

Beauty and the Beast re-telling’s are probably my all time favourite re-telling. It doesn’t matter how much it’s been changed or twisted from the original, – although the more wildly different and darker, the better in my opinion – if it even hints at Beauty and the Beast then I am reading it. It’s probably due my crazy obsession that I couldn’t bring myself to love this book.

Hunted’s version follows Yeva, a strong and slightly wilder daughter to the greatest huntsmen in the land. But when Yeva’s father loses his fortune they must sell everything and move to her father’s old cabin in the woods. Devastated from losing his fortune, Yeva’s father is convinced he can return his family to their former wealth and starts to hunt again, but in the dark woods he ends up the one being hunted. When her father doesn’t return Yeva decides to track him down but ends up being captured by a Beast.

“I will call you Beauty, for that is what you are.”

I really did enjoy reading Hunted but the pacing was too slow for my liking. Usually this wouldn’t bother me but there was a lot of back and forth with Yeva’s character and waiting for her to make a decision that caused the plot to lag. I also found the ending to be slightly anti-climatic, I was expecting a grand reveal of the mystery told throughout the story but it ended up being quickly explained and somewhat underwhelming. However I loved the Russian twist Spooner incorporated into the story, fairy tales such as ‘The Firebird’ and ‘Ivan’ are mentioned which really added to the fantasy setting created.

“She moves like beauty, she whispers to us of wind and forest—and she tells us stories, such stories that we wake in the night, dreaming dreams of a life long past. she reminds us of what we used to be.

She reminds us of what we could be.”

There wasn’t much of a romance between Yeva and the Beast and I think it was partly due to Yeva’s character, she was the hero of the story, she was able to rescue herself and the Beast and if she happens to fall in love along the way then that’s okay. I actually loved how it was all about Yeva finding herself and what it means to truly be happy and content. So while Hunted was a good retelling it was definitely missing that spark for me.