I wanted so badly to love this. The concept was absolutely fabulous — a young prima ballerina who fought her way to the top becomes the beauty in a Beauty and the Beast retelling, where the beast is

Death personified.

The story featured many elements I found original and/or interesting. The friendship between the main character and her best friend was heartwarming, loving, and honest. I deeply enjoyed the author’s portrayal of their healthy, loyal, intimate, supportive female friendship. Their friendship, in a book centered primarily around young female characters, thoroughly delighted me.

There are multiple reasons I scored this under four stars. Though not many, the issues I had with the book were (at least to me) significant. First, the story dragged a bit. I wanted it to move along, not necessarily more quickly, but more smoothly, with less of a stopping-and-starting pace and more finesse. Second, the narrator/protagonist was dumb as a rock. She couldn’t put together the very obvious indicators of what was happening around her, for one. But worse, she fell for the villain’s lies without questioning them, even though common sense, logic, and her own lived experiences would naturally lead anyone with half a brain to do so. 

However, it was the ending that offended me most. Both supremely unsatisfying and vague, it shared a lack of sense with its protagonist. The story’s written ending left me deeply frustrated, mostly because the book should’ve continued or at the very least given a hint indicating a real conclusion.