Name: Mel 's review of Hunted by Meagan Spooner
Item: Hunted
Rating: 4
Author: Mel

Meagan Spooner

New York Times bestselling author Meagan Spooner spins a thoroughly thrilling Beauty and the Beast story for the modern age, expertly woven with spellbinding romance, intrigue, and suspense that readers won’t soon be able to forget. Beauty knows the Beast's forest in her bones—and in her blood. After all, her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering its secrets. So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters out of their comfortable home among the aristocracy and 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. The Beast. Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange creature back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of magical 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?

Hunted

Eliška Lhotská

Kimberly Caulfield 

Mel 

The truest Beauty and The Beast retelling I have ever read. The first 50 pages were a bit slow but the story really picked up after that.

Danny Werhane

menna

I skimmed the second half of the book because I wasn't interested in anything

Finally a good Beauty and the Beast retelling. I love it.

Dee B. 

Okay, first of all, I just want to hug beast. All the time. He is so pitiable. And his POVs or (view spoiler)[lack of POV towards the end (hide spoiler)] were an eerie thing to witness. I wouldn't be opposed to a book with just the Beast narrating. 

Yeva wasn't my favorite female character that I've ever read, but she certainly was nowhere close to the worst. 

I love that the author veered away from the original storyline so that (view spoiler)[Yeva's father didn't have to return home with the knowledge that his daughter was being held prisoner (hide spoiler)] and we got to see a Beauty that was a lot more badass. 

Overall, as far as retellings go, this one can stay.

Livia

Myla Larsen

Laura Kehoe

Actual rating is 3.5. Full review coming!

Lila Harrison

This review was originally posted on The Bookkeepers' Secrets
Ah, love. The feeling you experience when you read a good book. A good book such as Meagan Spooner’s Hunted! (*wink wink, nudge nudge*) I certainly found many things to love in Hunted, the latest Beauty and the Beast YA retelling on the market. And that’s saying a lot because, in all honesty, a) Beauty and the Beast isn’t my favorite fairytale and b) the market is kinda saturated with YA Beauty and the Beast retellings, in my opinion. Nevertheless, I really, really enjoyed Hunted and sped through it in 2.5 to 3 days!

First off, I loved the characters. They were each unique and distinguishable. Even the secondary characters, like Galina, Solomir, and Yeva’s sisters had depth! I loved that Spooner didn’t just name attributes to the characters, but actually showed those attributes in action. We saw Yeva’s bravery and skill as a huntress and Beast’s dual nature, and Asenka’s compassion and so on.

I’ve gotta talk about my fave, Yeva, the main character! I adored Yeva. She’s a skilled huntress who’s always felt a deep longing for more. It was Yeva’s desire to experience more that I really identified with, because that’s something that I’ve always felt. Yeva was strong and brave, but she was also kind and loving. I was really happy to see that Spooner didn’t fall into the trap of making Yeva the typical Strong Female Lead™–ya know, the one’s who’s sassy and good at everything and beautiful and brave and blah, blah, blah. Yeva was strong, yet also soft. And she was deeply flawed, as we learned in the end. She was human and that made her easy to connect with.

The relationships portrayed were also amazing! I particularly loved Yeva’s relationship with her sisters. The girls were incredibly close and never once did their loyalty to and love for each other waver, even when they could have easily fallen into jealousy and competition. It was so nice to see a positive and close portrayal of family!

And the romance! Swoon! Hunted is the prime example of a slow burn romance done right! I appreciated how it was only after coming to really know each other that Yeva and her love interest really begin to fall for each other. You can see their progression from enemies to wary acquaintances to friends to good friends to feeling something more for each other. The unfolding of the pair’s love was really beautiful and touching to witness.

Another element I enjoyed was the world. Spooner’s world building is clear, yet lyrical and gracefully executed, without getting info dump-y. Hunted is set in an ancient, mythical version of Russia, where fairytales mingle with real life. The magic was just enough, but not overpowering and in this way, Spooner made the magic seem all the more real as it intertwined with the plausible. The snowy, harsh landscape was also a nice setting for the story because it added an extra obstacle to the tale. Everything about the world was so easy to lose yourself in and it really added an extra dimension to the story.

Okay, so while I loved 95% of Hunted, there was that teensy-weensy 5% that I thought could’ve been done better. In particular: the story dragged slightly in the middle and I also felt the story could’ve been a tad more original.

Let’s address the first of my complaints: the middle. There is this section where the story kinda gets stuck in a rut, with Yeva hunting, returning to the castle, rinse, wash, repeat. It gets repetitive and that starts to slow the story a bit. I just wish we’d spent that time doing something more, perhaps exploring Beast’s past or learning more about th world. Spooner resolves the issue eventually, but just barely after I started fading.

Now onto my second issue. While Hunted was quite honestly compulsively readable, it didn’t stray much from the original tale. In fact, it’s almost an exact retelling. It differed in the world and setting, yes, but the plot stuck pretty darn close to the original Beauty and the Beast tale. I just feel like, in this new and magical world, and with the writing talent that Spooner clearly displays, there definitely was room to elaborate and embellish. It just seems to me like Spooner played it safe when it came to plot and I think that she’s talented enough that taking a risk would’ve really paid off.

So all in all, I really enjoyed Hunted. I’d recommend it to fans of Beauty and the Beast and Russian-inspired fantasy such as The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo or The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye. Definitely a great read!

Maria

я не большой поклонник "красавицы и чудовища" - не столько из-за стокгольмского синдрома, про который говорят при любом перессказе, сколько из-за герметичности. история строится только на взаимодействии двух героев и изменении динамики их отношений, место действия не меняется, нет внешних факторов и третьих персонажей (ну, у диснея есть утварь, но она все равно часть чудовища). это делает сюжет предсказуемым, ну и не хватает, конечно, мира вокруг

в этой книге мира тоже не хватило - непонятно даже, идет речь о реальной россии или выдуманной квази-россии (упоминаются константинопль, киев и монголы, но без подробностей). в принципе, можно было бы достроить и сказочный мир, добавить персонажей и предысторию - мы в итоге так и не узнаем, как именно чудовище заколдовали, понимаем только параллель из сказки

но это, наверное, единственый момент критики, потому что читать правда интересно. отдельно отмечу про себя лично, что моё сердце согрела связь со (view spoiler)[сказкой об иване-царевиче и сером волке. у моей бабушки была пластинка с этой сказкой, и мы ее слушали постоянно, и даже инсценировали и играли в нее. важная часть детства. (hide spoiler)]

Jen Estrella

A wolf and a man. A woman and a dragon. Hunter and hunted. Nothing in this world has only one nature.
 
  She wept because she did not know what she wanted, and because she wanted everything.

Adrianne

Loved the audiobook, so if you can get your hands on it, definitely recommend. However, the story itself is not the best of Beauty and the Beast retellings I've read (and oh boy, there is many of them). Enjoyable but not the best out there.

Candyce Kirk

2.5 stars

Hunted was a book I was really excited for since I saw the cover. I loved how it looked and who would be disappointed with a cover like this on your shelf? This is definitely a good case of don't judge a book by its cover. 

I did enjoy how this book started off. We started to get to know Yeva a bit more and the setting she was in. It was nice to see that she wasn't the typical "girl" in this story. She must rather go hunting with her father than sitting down to learn how to be a lady. That's kind of where my love for her ended though. There was just something about her that rubbed me the wrong way and made it hard to connect with.

This story progresses slow. We get the elements we know and love from Beauty and the Beast, even if they're altered just a bit. Yeva is determined to find her father, but ends up captured by the Beast. His part in the story was interesting and I loved the start of each chapter with little glimpses of his thoughts. I needed more of the Beast though. Yeah, we slowly see different sides of him, but it lacked for me at times.

That being said, there is only little development between Yeva and the Beast. Of course, she slowly starts seeing his human side and I liked how the author made us see him as something different than the Beast. I didn't feel the relationship between them. It did change and they started relating to each other more, but the connection didn't seem like it was there until Yeva just had to get back to him.

Hunted kept me interested enought to continue to the end, but it's not my favorite Beauty and the Beast retelling. The amazing start was there and I enjoyed the author's concept, but the execution just didn't do it for me. I liked that the story was a bit darker though and that Yeva was tough and didn't just sit back and be hopeless.

Sam Kiszonka

Be still my beating heart!!

As most of you have probably figured out… I am obsessed with retellings!! And apparently Wolves! Ha!! If you haven’t heard I am in love with The Big Bad Wolf from The Forgotten Fairytales by Angela Parkhurst. Anyway back to this book. I buddy read this book with my book blogging friend, Jasmine @How Useful It Is. Check out her amazing review here!

Julianne Storms

Absolutely loved it. One of the best fairy tale retellings I've read. It was definitely Beauty and the beast but it was not predictable at all and I love how Beauty was portrayed.

Reading With Chris

I finished this days ago and I still don’t know exactly how I feel about it. This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling that captured my attention from the beginning. It’s a much darker and more magical version of the fairytale and I loved that, but there were some parts of this book that just missed the mark for me. I can’t pinpoint why but I just couldn’t fall in love with these characters the same way I fell in love with the dark plot. 

laura

This was a fun read. But the characters were not as complex as i like. The story had a unique way of retelling this story and i like it. I just was not super invested in the characters but i thought it was a fun read.

Justine Rose

Not exactly a solid 4 stars, but definitely close! Maybe 3.75. 
The story line itself was great, maybe a little slow, but still interesting along the way. The only reason it lost points with me was the ending, because I just felt like it was a big build up for a small fall. I really enjoyed the characters, though, and overall I really enjoyed this novel!

Kristen

I'm a sucker for a good Beauty and the Beast story, and this was definitely one of my favorites.

Stephanie Haynes

Alejandra Bran

*happy crying* this is a beautiful retelling of the Beauty and the Beast.

Leelynn Brady

Find this review and more on my blog: Sometimes Leelynn Reads

“Fairy tales are about lessons. Those who are virtuous and true are rewarded, while those who are wicked and greedy are punished.” 

This was one of the most amazing retellings of Beauty and the Beast that I've ever read. The premise that Beauty was the hunter, rather than the "damsel" in distress that has to deal with being a prisoner in an amazing castle. Forget what you know about the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast, because this was nothing like it. In fact, I think the lack of musicals and talking furniture made the story better in my eyes.

According to the original story of Beauty and the Beast - the original French version that does not get enough credit - Beauty had two sisters that she needed to take care of. I have seen some versions where her sisters are not friendly, almost similar to Cinderella's ugly stepsisters and how they are cruel to her because of her beauty. In this case, she was responsible for making sure that her sisters had food to eat, and served as a second hunter after her father.

In the beginning of the story, they lived in the town and her family was rich as her father made a lot of money as a merchant. However, all that changed when he lost his entire fleet in a storm, essentially bringing them from riches to rags in a matter of seconds. They had to sell their belongings, and move to the cabin where they lost their mom. In a way, Yeva was glad to go back to her roots because she was always looking for something more, something different from the confines of the Baroness's social visits and dealing with the politics of the town. So when she had to go back to the cabin and have access to the woods she grew up in, going back to hunting which was what she loved, she was more than happy to leave. If it wasn't for her father's pain, it would have almost been a blessing.

But then something bad happened to her father, and she was hell-bent on revenge, leaving her sisters to fend for themselves while she was on the hunt for the creature that destroyed her rock. She had always heard stories about the Beast in the woods, the elusive creature that her father could never find no matter how many times he went out to search. He knew the area like the back of his hand, and yet there was no way that he could find it. So when Yeva's father did not come home, there was only one thing that she could do.

She had to kill the Beast.

One of the elements that I appreciated about this book was the fact that there was no typical love story between Yeva and the Beast. It was not forced, it wasn't something that seemed to come out of nowhere after being imprisoned in a castle for months at a time. It wasn't pushed along by the castle's inhabitants trying to convince her to let the Beast in, unlike Disney's animated version. She really wanted her revenge, she really wanted to kill the Beast and there was no way that she was going to allow herself to feel anything other than hatred for him, and that's how it went for the longest time.

Yeva was so strong, so steadfast in her resolve that she endured being alone, her family probably thinking that she was dead. And when she was forced to train based on orders from the Beast, she did everything in her power to make sure that she did well, that she trained harder and faster than she ever did before. She discovered that there was so much more to the woods than she thought, that in fact there was another world completely surrounding the one that she lived in, and it was there that she would be able to break the curse that would have her confined to being lonely. She was one of my favorite characters of any book that I've read and I'm so glad that despite everything that happened, she does end up getting a good ending.

Whether you like the Beast or not is up for debate, and his story is one that is not based on him being an ugly person inside, or treating people like they are trash. No, his backstory is one that goes back farther than any we've heard before, and is something mythical in its own right. Does it make you feel empathy for him? Does it make you wish that he was more like the Beast from the Disney animated version? It depends. But in all honesty, this was one of the stories that I will never forget, and one of the stories that will forever remain in my heart.

Kimberly Caulfield &
Hunted by Meagan Spooner

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