Actual rating 3.5.

I keep seeing this being referred to as a gender swapped Beauty and the Beast tale, but it actually kind of feels more to me like The Little Mermaid if the ocean is a forest and the mermaids are murderous tree nymphs. There is far more talk about hearts and souls and becoming human for me to see it as anything else but that. Serena’s desire to be human and her actions at the end feel far more in line with the original Mermaid story than anything Beauty and the Beast ish for me. Mainly I feel people are using that description because the girl is the monster in this story, not so much that this is meant to be a B&B retelling, just so that’s clear for anyone looking to read this.

Overall this is a good book, though I enjoyed the first half far more than the ending. With the title being what it was and seeing the hints along the way I did expect the sorrow of how things went, along with the bright spot at the end. I can’t put my finger on it, but it does feel like there was something missing. I feel like Seren and Owen are set up to be parallels to the king and the wood witch and it would have been nice to have their story fleshed out a tiny bit more to make that even more clear.

This is very much a bittersweet sort of story, and it does understand the concepts of love and sacrifice very well. I think I just wanted it to dig in a bit deeper in some areas and linger more on the mystery of the king’s intentions. I’d almost call this a YA version of Uprooted for having a lot of similar concepts.