Title: Ensnared
Author: Rita Stradling
Genre: fairytale retelling/sci-fi
Date Read: 14/06/2017 – 19/06/2017
Rating: ★★
Review:
I was really excited to read a futuristic retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Unfortunately, this one had a few too many elements that made me feel a bit iffy, so I ended up not enjoying it much in the end.
To save her father from prison, Alainn Murphy takes the place of a robot that looks just like her, in the home of Lorccan Garbhan, a disfigured billionaire who has never been outside the tower he grew up in What she expects is a life of servitude, but that’s not what she ends up getting…
There were some things I did like, so let’s talk about those first. I liked most aspects of the near-future world, including the variety of different robots and AI. I also liked the villain of the piece (I won’t give too much away). I thought the character’s motivations were quite well done, but I did feel that the climax was a bit too drawn out.
The thing that bothered me the most about this story was that as the romance developed between the two main character, Lorcann still thought Alainn was a robot. Even when they start having sex. Even when he starts proposing to her. There was a point where Alainn’s brother says something about Lorcann’s subconscious knowing she was human even if he hadn’t consciously figured it out yet, but that wasn’t enough for me. This could have been explored really well, but instead, it was barely looked at, other than Alainn feeling guilty for continually finding reasons not to tell Lorcann the truth.
As I said before, I felt the climax was a bit too drawn out, and the same could be said for several sections. The book felt too long and there were sections were I was bored enough to consider not finishing. I think this book could have worked really well with a bit of tightening up and a deep exploration of the issues it brought up (and hey, I read an ARC, so for all I know, this did come out more in the final version), but as it was, this was definitely not what I hoped for.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with a free copy of this book for review.
Find me on:
A Keyboard and an Open Mind 
I was debating on reading this myself. But now… I don’t know. I guess if I don’t have anything else to read (haha because I only have like 400 book on my TBR….)
Sorry you didn’t like it as much as you hoped you would.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, life is too short to read bad books. 😉 I mean, other people have really liked this one and maybe you would, too, but yeah, I wouldn’t make it a priority.
LikeLiked by 1 person