I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 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