Tuesday, January 10, 2017

RoseBlood by A.G. Howard


Hardcover432 pages
Expected publication: January 10th 2017 by Amulet Books
ISBN: 1419719092 (ISBN13: 9781419719097)



In this modern day spin on Leroux’s gothic tale of unrequited love turned to madness, seventeen-year-old Rune Germain has a mysterious affliction linked to her operatic talent, and a horrifying mistake she’s trying to hide. Hoping creative direction will help her, Rune’s mother sends her to a French arts conservatory for her senior year, located in an opera house rumored to have ties to The Phantom of the Opera. 

At RoseBlood, Rune secretly befriends the masked Thorn—an elusive violinist who not only guides her musical transformation through dreams that seem more real than reality itself, but somehow knows who she is behind her own masks. As the two discover an otherworldly connection and a soul-deep romance blossoms, Thorn’s dark agenda comes to light and he’s forced to make a deadly choice: lead Rune to her destruction, or face the wrath of the phantom who has haunted the opera house for a century, and is the only father he’s ever known.






I want to start off this review by saying I have never read or watched any adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera. So, I cannot speak for whether or not this book was a good retelling/spinoff from the original! 

Since I knew nothing about the original story, I was grateful that the author included information from the original throughout the book so it was easier to understand the inspiration for RoseBlood. After reading RoseBlood, I decided that I need to go and learn more about the original because it now seems VERY interesting. 

The main character, Rune, was an interesting main character. I felt bad for her because of the sad events that happened in her past. In this book, she was still grieving from a loss and my heart broke for her. I really liked how she sometimes seemed like a meek character, but then would do things that weren't meek at all. 

I loved understanding and learning about how passionate Rune was about music. Her passion was beautifully written by the author. One issue I had with Rune was that her character was a little cliche. Rune was the new person at the school and she managed to get the most dramatic girl at school to hate her all because she fainted into the arms of a cute boy. It thought that was an unnecessary plot point. I also felt like Rune was also was a hard character for me to connect with. 

The other main character was Thorn. Thorn was my favorite character in this book! I thought the author did a great job at creating a complex and interesting backstory for Thorn. Thorn's character broke my heart and made me swoon at the same time. Thorn felt like such a raw and real person. I couldn't help but feel compassion for him. I really loved learning more about him and seeing him deal with his past. I adored him and I just wanted to give him a hug! GIVE ME MORE THORN.

The romance in this book was well paced and full of swoons. I thought the romance added a sweet and even adorable aspect to the story. The slow pace was agonizing and delicious. I DEFINITELY was shipping Thorn and Rune so hard. I thought they made a perfect pair!

I thought that some parts of this book really dragged, especially the beginning of the book. It took me a while to get into this book. There were parts of this book that I flew through, and then there were parts that were harder for me to push through. I wish there would have been more action throughout the book instead of having all of the excitement at the end of the book. I really liked the way the author wrote the action scenes so I would have really liked to see that more throughout the book.

The overall plot of this book was really interesting and unique. The author's writing style was extremely lush and it showcased her wonderful imagination.I loved the way the author's words flowed and how descriptive she was. I will say that some aspects of this book were really weird. I didn't really like those elements because they were just so odd and hard to enjoy.

Overall, I thought this was a creative and romantic book. 
Even though I didn't love everything about this book, I still really liked this novel (mainly because of my baby, Thorn). I am excited to check out other books by this author! 



3 / 5 Fangs

*This ebook was given to me in exchange for an honest review. * 

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