In Kill Me Softly, Sarah Cross takes the fairy tales we all knew as children and reinvents them for the modern reader.

Fifteen-year old Mira is tired of the secrets and restrictions imposed upon her by her two godmothers, who have been raising her since her parents died tragically at Mira’s christening party. After concocting an elaborate ruse by planting long-distance love letters in her desk, Mira hops the midnight bus to Beau Rivage, her birthplace and the one place her guardians have forbidden her to go. Her goal in returning to Beau Rivage is to find her parents’ graves and maybe learn more about them. Instead, she gets much more than she bargained for in the form of three very different boys who all seem to be vying for her affections. Things in her hometown are just a little bit strange, and everyone she meets is playing to a fairytale character type. Many of her new friends are even cursed. As the cover of the book foreshadows, the course of true love does not run smooth for Mira. Fairytales are oftentimes very grim indeed. Will Mira discover her parents’ back stories? Which “prince” will she ultimately fall for and will their love become her doom?

I loved the characters the author created, and the way she drew from traditional fairy tales to craft their modern counterparts. The mysterious bad-boy Blue was a favorite, although I valiantly attempted to give the other characters the attention they were due. I also thought the dialogue was fantastic and very believable. The occasional profanity didn’t bother me; it didn’t seem gratuitous and it lent authenticity to the teen parley. There was plenty of suspense throughout the novel to keep my attention; I read quickly because I was curious and engaged in our heroine’s plight. I know lots of teenage girls who will swoon over both the romantic scenes and the deliciously creepy ones.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m not part of the target audience, but I found many parts of the book to be a bit hard to swallow. All aspects of the fairytale world of Beau Rivage were creative and well-conceived, but there was still a pervading aspect of cheesiness that I couldn’t shake off. I’m curious to see how teens react. I also ended the book unsatisfied because we never learned what Mira did with the information she received about her parents. Maybe this was left deliberately vague to leave the door open for a sequel? This was a fun, quick read, and I will definitely recommend it to fans of teen romance and modern fairytales.

Thanks to Netgalley and EgmontUSA for the advanced reading copy!