Rita Stradling

A Near Future Retelling of Beauty and the BeastAlainn's father is not a bad man. He's a genius and an inventor. When he's hired to create the robot Rose, Alainn knows taking the money is a mistake.Rose acts like a human. She looks exactly like Alainn. But, something in her comes out wrong.To save her father from a five year prison sentence, Alainn takes Rose's place. She says goodbye to the sun and goes to live in a tower no human is allowed to enter. She becomes the prisoner of a man no human is allowed to see.Believing that a life of servitude lies ahead, Alainn finds a very different fate awaits her in the company of the strange, scarred recluse.

Ensnared

Anita

DNF 70%
I just can't stand the FMC. She is questioning everything all the time. Way too much. It comes across as entitled. On the one hand she is the lovely caring young women planning a career in some social areas. And then she constantly demands and demands and demands some more.

The editing of the book is horrible. I usually don't complain about typos but there were whole chapters in bold for no reason. Part of words and whole sentences missing.

Paige Green

Rating: 3/5

Genre: YA Science-Fiction/Fantasy

Recommended Age: 18+ (violence, adult situations, and lots of robots. Like seriously, if you have automatonophobia I would highly suggest you not read this book).

I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley! My opnions are my own.

Alainn's father is not a bad man. He's a genius and an inventor. When he's hired to create the robot Rose, Alainn knows taking the money is a mistake.

Rose acts like a human. She looks exactly like Alainn. But, something in her comes out wrong.

To save her father from a five year prison sentence, Alainn takes Rose's place. She says goodbye to the sun and goes to live in a tower no human is allowed to enter. She becomes the prisoner of a man no human is allowed to see.

Believing that a life of servitude lies ahead, Alainn finds a very different fate awaits her in the company of the strange, scarred recluse. - Amazon.com

Another book I had to DNF. Beauty and the beast is my favorite fairytale and Disney movie. I pride myself on being like Belle (except I probably would have kicked Gaston's ass on my own but that's another thing entirely). That being said I was so excited to see this book on Netgalley and I jumped at the chance to review it! While reading it I thought the concept of the book was really intriguing. I also thought that the plot and the pacing were well done and that the writing was really good. This book should have been a 5/5 for me, but for a few reasons it just wasn't.

Firstly, a couple of the characters felt a little flat and one of them did not have any character development at all. I also thought that while this book is set in the "near future" there was still not enough world building to it. It really made me confused in some spots because I wasn't sure about how the world was and how it was laid out. I also thought that because of the massive boom in retellings, especially Beauty and the Beast retellings, that I just could not get into this book. I tried multiple times, but failed every time. I felt like I knew all the of the surprises and things that would come from this book.

Verdict: Will I try this book out again? Yes definitely. I'm still intrigued by it and I want to read it. Will I give it a second shot anytime soon? No. As of right now I'm Beauty and the Beast worn out and I want to wait a few years before I attempt anything like this book again. I'd still highly recommend this book for any fairy tale lovers and any sci-fi lovers and especially those that belong in both categories.

Jolie

This book was very interesting to read but I really wouldn’t compare it to Beauty and the Beast. Honestly, I would compare it to more I, Robot than anything. I mean, I get where the Beauty and the Beast lines were drawn: a beautiful woman trapped by scarred (physically and mentally) man but that is it.

What I really enjoyed was the usage of robots and AI’s in the book. I also like that Rose, the main AI, was self-sufficient and admitted to starting on rewriting her programming. It was at that point where I went “Oh no” and started reciting the 3 rules of robotics to myself:

1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm

2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3)A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Just based on these rules of robotics and the fact that at least one of them were broken within the first couple of chapters, I was hooked. Seeing that AI’s are becoming more commonplace in daily lives (hello, Cortona, Siri, Alexa/Echo!!!), I was pretty interested to see where the author would take this book and I wasn’t disappointed.

I really felt that Alainn didn’t have a choice to masquerade as Rose when given the choice. Actually, she wasn’t given the choice. Rose, the AI, basically told her to do it or her father would go to jail. All Alainn wanted to do was to go back to work on the ski patrol and not clean up her dad’s mess (not delivering Rose as promised to Lorcann). But she did it because she loved her father and she wanted to keep him out of jail.

Lorcann was messed up. He never leaves his tower and only has automatons and AI’s as companions. He is a germaphobe (requires everyone to be decontaminated before they enter the tower). I put the way he is on his parents. They never let him leave, installed a fear of germs and I believe abused him (there was one scene where he was getting beaten by his mother). Let’s not mention the scars on his face. The whole side of his face is scarred. It really wasn’t gotten into about why he was scarred. If it was an accident or if the scars were done intentionally. He believed that he was a beast. His only relationship is with a woman that he talks to over the phone. Until Alainn, under the guise of being Rose, enters the tower.

I thought that the romance between Alainn and Lorcann was kinda creepy at first. I mean, he thought she was an AI that was programmed to be absolutely humanlike. She, however, was there to buy her father time to finish Rose. But it happened, as creepy as it was. I really thought, during certain scenes, that Lorcann had caught onto Alainn’s ruse. Oh, was I wrong.

The AI’s were split between those that obeyed the three rules of robotics and those that didn’t. I actually felt bad for Rosebud, Lorcann’s house management AI. I had thought the whole time that she was working against Alainn when she was trying to help her and ended up getting hijacked by Rosette and Rose.

The last half of the book was nail-biting. I mean, I was on the edge of my seat and was literally cheering Alainn on. There were a few plots twists that were thrown in that actually made sense and gave me more insight into Alainn’s character.

The author didn’t end the book after the rescue (consider this a clue). Everything after that was a build to the second climax of the book. I have never read a book where the author has successfully had two climaxes in the same book. So be warned when you think there is a lull. It isn’t and the other climax is something that I didn’t expect. All I am going to say about that. Read the book!!

How many stars will I give Ensnared: 4

Why: I enjoyed reading this book. It was fast paced with characters that you actually like and a plot line that is engaging.

Will I reread: Yes

Will I recommend to family and friends: Yes

Age range: Adult

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**

Ensnared

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