Review: Hunted by Meagan Spooner

Hunted By Meagan Spooner

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Out of all of the Disney movies I have grown up with, the story of Beauty and the Beast was always my favorite. The tale of Belle, a beautiful and unique girl who loved to read and wanted something more for herself and Prince Adam, the beast who had to learn how to love and be loved always made me believe that everything was possible and you don’t have to be like anyone else to be happy. So like I said, I love this classic fairytale, so when I saw this at the bookstore, I knew that it would be something that I had to take home. This is the first book I read by this author and I have to say, I can’t wait to read other things from this author.

~Thoughts~

The story begins with Yeva, a merchant’s daughter, who is living her life day by day doing what she’s supposed to do. Being the perfect lady, part of upper society, is what Yeva should be striving for because that’s what her family wants, even though deep down, she’s not happy. Unfortunately, her father ends up making a bad business decision and loses everything. Sadly, because of this, the merchant, his three daughters, two dogs, and Albe, their most loyal servant, sell almost everything they own and go live at the father’s old hunting cabin. He had taught Yeva, who he nicknamed “beauty”, how to hunt when she was a little girl, so when her father would go deep into the forest, she would secretly go off to hunt smaller game herself. One day, her father leaves and doesn’t return so Yeva takes it upon herself, although her sisters and Solmir (the man who wants to marry Yeva), protest, she ends up heading out deep in the forest after her father. There, she gets kidnapped by a beast and taken to his castle, which is where the story truly begins. When I was reading this story, I still had the basic story of beauty and the beast in the back of my mind, so I couldn’t help but compare and contrast both stories as I moved forward in the tale. The way Meagan Spooner wrote from the Beast’s point of view made it really easy to see his progress as he got closer to Yeva, as well as his decline in his humanity when she left, often only even writing three words or less when the Beast was giving up on his beauty. I really enjoyed reading this book and I’m so glad it is now a part of my growing collection. The way that the main characters developed was what kept me intrigued until the very end; It's what really made me fall in love with them all. The love Yeva and the Beast had for each other was amazing and everything I could have hoped for. However, the love that really shined through was the love that the sisters had for each other… it was truly astonishing.

~Favorite Quotes~

“She wept because she did not know what she wanted, and because she wanted everything.”

“We curse everything, for we are cursed, and we have no arms to shelter her and no lips to press to her hair and above all no words to tell her that we know loss and we know pain and if they were monsters we could fight we would have slain them in her name long ago like the heroes of old. But we are not a hero. We are cursed.”

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

“Beast. She calls you Beast, for that is what you are. And Beauty. The surprise is not the compliment, not the truth, that she is beautiful. The surprise is not that we wish to help her. The surprise is not even the electric warmth that rises at the sound of her voice, even when she is shouting. The surprise is how much I long to hear her call me, just once more, Ivan.”

~Book Synopsis~

Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones-

And in her blood.

She knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them.

But Yeva’s grown up far from her father’s old lodge, raised to be part of the city’s highest caste of aristocrats. Still, she’s never forgotten the feel of a bow in her hands, and she’s spend a lifetime longing for the freedom of the hunt.

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 heard about only in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin- or salvation.

Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? Did you like this different version of a fairy tale classic? Let me know in the comments below! Make sure to subscribe!