Review: Tear You Apart (Beau Rivage) by Sarah Cross

Title: Tear You Apart
Author: Sarah Cross
My rating: 4.25 hearts
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Release date: January 27th, 2015
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Summary: If you want to live happily ever after, first you have to stay alive.

Viv knows there’s no escaping her fairy-tale curse. One day her beautiful stepmother will feed her a poison apple or convince her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Henley, to hunt her down and cut out her heart before she breaks his. In the city of Beau Rivage, some princesses are destined to be prey.

But then Viv receives an invitation to the exclusive club where the Twelve Dancing Princesses twirl away their nights. There she meets Jasper, an underworld prince who seems to have everything—but what he really wants is her. He vows to save her from her dark fate if she’ll join him and be his queen.

All Viv has to do is tear herself away from the huntsman boy who still holds her heart. Then she might live to see if happily ever after is a promise the prince can keep. But is life as an underworld queen worth sacrificing the true love that might kill her? (summary from Goodreads)

My thoughts: This is about Vivian, or Viv, who has a Snow White curse, which means that one day, either she will have her heart cut out by the Huntsman (who happens to be her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Henley) or will be poisoned by her stepmother. She is terrified, which makes her pull away from Henley, and she is certain he will have enough of their fighting one day and kill her.

   Viv makes a lot of mistakes. She’s very emotional, and makes a lot of her decisions based on her emotions, which usually ends pretty badly. She loves Henley, but thinks they can’t be together in the end because of the curse. She’s worried that her prince won’t be nice, that he’ll be some kind of pervert who likes dead girls or something.

   Viv’s father is never home, leaving Viv and her stepmother, Regina, who hates her, alone in their house. And the talking mirror is also there; although every mirror in their house can talk.

   I liked Viv okay. Sometimes, she could be a little stupid, which was annoying, but there were times when I could actually understand her feelings, to a certain point. She was a little too paranoid for my taste, but otherwise, she was an okay character. I get why she was paranoid – living the bigger part of your life with someone you know will one day either make someone kill you or poison you can do that to a person.

   Henley is the Huntsman in Viv’s Snow White curse, destined to kill her or let her go. Henley is pretty protective of Viv, ready to give his life in order to protect her, even when they are fighting.

   I like Henley okay, too, although I really don’t understand why he doesn’t leave Viv. She’s not that nice to him most of the time, and I don’t understand how he can live with it, and not do something about it. I’m not saying I think he should cut her heart out, but I don’t think he should stay with her. It makes no sense.

   They live in Beau Rivage, a town where fairytales (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, you name it) come true. The people who are literally living a fairytale are called Cursed. They get Cursed by fairies, and really don’t have much of a choice in their life. There are other people in Beau Rivage, too, people who don’t know about the Cursed.

   I like the idea a lot. I love fairytale-retellings, so this seemed perfect, in theory. And it wasn’t bad. It was actually pretty good; just not as good as I’d hoped. Some of the characters were pretty annoying, and I really wanted to get to know them better. Especially Jasper. It felt a little like you should know enough about them because of their curse, but it didn’t work out for me. Maybe there was a point to that, maybe not, but it just didn’t work for me.

   The world was great, as was the writing, and I liked the ending, it wasn’t too obvious, so it really was a good book. It followed the story-line of Snow White, but was still its own book, which was great. It is, in my opinion, one of the most important things in fairytale-retellings. Otherwise it’s predictable and boring. And it was modernized, so that was a big plus. The only minus was the characters, and that it was a little boring at times.

   And I have to say something about the cover. It's so awesome. Not as perfect as the cover for Kill Me Softly, but close.

   So, overall, it was a good book, and I’d definitely recommend it.