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asoftepiloguemylove · 1 year

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i wanna make you fall in love as hard as my poor parents teenage daughter / she'll be the best you ever had if you let her

Sylvia Plath from a letter to Ann Davdiow-Goodman written 1951; Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume I: 1940-1956 / Jeanette Winterson excerpt from Lighthousekeeping / Rosamund Hodge excerpt from Cruel Beauty / unknown / image: Angelica Alzona Intimacy (2012) words: The National Daughter of the Soho Riots (2005) / Tathève Simonyan A Prayer / @/FAUNTHEKiD (pinterest) / Victoria Chang Foghorn; Six poems / image: unknown words: Richard Siken excerpt from Crush / Hala Alyan I'm Not Speaking First

i. Sylvia Plath, letter to Ann Davdiow-Goodman

[ "I know I'll always think of you with something like hurt and nostalgia - and a great deal of love." ]

ii. Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

[ "This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in." ]

iii. Rosamund Hodge, Cruel Beauty

[ "You fought and fought to keep all the cruelty locked up in your head, and for what? None of them ever loved you, because none of them ever knew you." ]

iv. unknown

[ "and you've cried once more because recognition feels like forgiveness, which is a burning furnace that can't stand on its own. love is a feast but you've learned to abstain. there is a sickness that follows the shame of giving with love only to be met with slaughter." ]

v. Angelica Alzona, Intimacy / The National, Daughter of the Soho Riots

[ Surrealist painting of a man and a woman kissing as their faces blend together. Red outlines of hands reach up around them. "BREAK MY ARMS / AROUND THE ONE I LOVE" ]

vi. Tatheve Simonyan, A Prayer

[ "Rage, that is love - rotten! / Rage, that is desire - rotten! / Rage! - like a prayer, unanswered, ricocheting from your ceiling and landing right onto your eyes, never quite reaching where it was meant to." ]

vii. FAUNTHEKiD

[ "being in close proximity to you / is being led to the slaughter / if that the lamb is aware is alive is accepting / if that the slaughter is love love love" ]

viii. Victoria Chang, Foghorn

[ "The great mystery / is whether I love you or / I just love mourning. / The absence of a laugh just / gone, and the air that fills it." ]

ix. unknown/Richard Siken, Crush

[ Silhouette of a boy looking downwards. Red streaks from the background spread outwards from the middle. "I'll be your / slaughterhouse, / your killing floor, / your morgue / and final resting" ]

x. Hala Alyan, I'm Not Speaking First

[ "Nothing's Freudian anymore. A cigar's a cigar. I want to love something / I want to love something without having to apologize for it. Please don't tell." ]

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lunamond · 6 months

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In light of my recent post about Acotar, I wanted to gush some about my favourite Beauty and Beast and Ballad of Tam Lin (and a sprinkle of Bluebeard) YA retelling.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge ❤️

This is mostly going to be a gush fest and recommendation for anyone who was also excited by the idea of meshing Beauty and the Beast with Tam Lin and ended up utterly disappointed with Acotar.

Some very mild spoilers (mostly Worldbuilding)

Cruel Beauty is a fun and easy read: YA Fantasy Romance with plenty of popular tropes and archetypes, like the arranged marriage, forced proximity, enemies to lovers, etc

This book still manages to engage in such interesting ways with the original tales it's based on.

Instead of stealing the aesthetic of the Og fairytales and other folklore and mythology like in Acotar.

Any defining fae feature of Sjm's characters is immediately removed in the very beginning of Acotar (the lieing, the iron, etc), turning the characters in what amounts to hot magic people. Even their supposed long lifespans barely impact their behaviour or culture.

Cruel Beauty continuously builts on its roots, making them an intrinsic part of its narrative.

In Acotar outside of the very shallow narrative skeleton of the Beauty and the Beast tale, you could strip away the faerie and folklore elements, and you're left with the same story. The only changes you might need to make are to find a new name for Tamlin (while not that serious, I considered it quite offensive when I first read this series as a teenager that Sjm would take that name and then turn that character into an abuser).

In Cruel Beauty, however, both the defining elements of the Beauty and the Beast story and the Tam Lin story are crucial to the development and resolution of its plot.

The Beast of the story is cursed, as are the inhabitants of his castle. Nyx, our Beauty character, is offered in exchange for a mistake her father made. As she is unknowingly about to break the curse, the Beast lets her go back, but when she returns, it's too late to break the curse.

This is when the story morphes into the Ballad of Tam Lin, and Nyx has to win her lover back from the Faerie Queen in much the same manner as Janet did in the ballad, even saving him from a very similar fate.

The Bluebeard elements, which to me always seemed more like references than an actual retelling, are still really apparent and well integrated.

The representation of the fae is also great in this book. This is especially remarkable due to the fact that the actual words fae or faerie are never used once.

Instead, they are referred to as the Kindly Ones.

However, they are clearly trickster folk who make bargains with unwitting humans that always end up going wrong in cruel ways. They are fair, never directly lie, and always keep their end of the agreement. They place a lot of importance on names, are otherworldly, eerie, etc.

Basically, they actually seem Other, instead of talking and acting like frat bros from the 21st century.

This book differs from a lot of other Fae Fantasy, however, in the way it mixes Greco-Roman Myths with more Celtic Germanic Folklore. It creates a really fun interplay between these cultures, both in-world as well as on a meta level.

First of all, there are some other (in my opinion, more mediocre books) that do throw a lot of mythologies together. CB sets itself apart with the fact that it does so with a lot more purpose than others do.

In many people's minds, different cultures and mythos tend to be viewed as very separate. However, just looking at the Greek and Roman myths, it's already pretty clear that every time cultures clashed, so would their myths and stories.

This is a well studied phenomenon. The romans especially were well known to basically mash up their deities and myths with those of every new culture they interacted with.

And CB uses this brilliantly. The story is set in an alternate timeline, in which, after the fall of Rome, a kingdom known as Arcadia was created by former Roman generals/nobility. This mirrors actual history, during which many early medieval kingdoms would seek their legitimacy in their connections to the Roman Empire (see the Holy Roman Empire aka Germany).

But in CB, the fantastical elements are meshed up in this as well. This allows Rosamund Hodge to create an interesting interplay between the Greco-Roman Mythology imported by the elite in Arcadia and the more Celtic/Germanic Folklore elements native to the land and its population.

So, yeah. Go read Cruel Beauty, please.

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laylaslibrary · 10 months

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Rosamund Hodge, Cruel Beauty

#quotes #literature #poetry #aesthetic #books #poem #lit #love quotes #dark acadamia quotes #dark acamedia #rosamund hodge #cruel beauty

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elenagoeslightly · 10 months

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ok this is not exactly a rant but i've been thinking, as someone who writes, about the way that we female authors present our female characters because in the vast majority of the books I've read, they are mostly the means to an end and the end is a man.

like literally so many female characters have their own growth thrown to the wind and for what? to put a ring on it?

maybe is just not appealing to me as a reader but why can't growth and love coexist? why can't a power angry woman be loved when men are idolized through every shitty and downright abusive and toxic behavior known on god's green earth?

i want my cruel and vindictive and unhinged women to be loved like they hang the moon in the sky for the vile and cruel creatures that they are why do women need to be bite sized or worst need to be punished even if their cruelty is basically a survival instinct while the man can be everything they want regardless of why and how the math isn't mathing

#look this makes me angry #women in literature #we aren't talking the gone girl kinda evil we are talking of women's nature outside of mens shitty behaviors #books #jude duarte #yes it's kinda about her my baby could have been the most powerful being ever but nope look that part doesn't make an ounce of sense #nyx triskelion #cruel babe who doesn't have 1 problem in being cruel #torture him babe who cares #the cruel prince #cruel beauty #fantasy books #Katherine pierce #i will never watch tvd in its entirety bc of reasons but she is my babe #buffy summers #especially in the last that bunch of ungrateful fucks #look i want to talk about books bc words literally saved my ass since the down of day but i also want to be real about it

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lorcandidlucienwill · 6 months

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Ignoring this”—he waved a hand at the metal eye and brutal scar on his face—“surely we’re not so miserable to look at.”

Boy, the scar is the best feature tf dym

#pro lucien vanserra #lucien vanserra #i'm just #obsessed #that scar tho #wow #cruel beauty #he's amazing #lumiere #fox boy

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books-in-a-storm · 29 days

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March 2024 JOMPBPC: Day 30 Read In March

#justonemorepage #jompbpc #booklr #bookblr #books #funko pop #funko and books #cruel beauty #rosamund hodge #book nerd

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stargirlie25 · 2 months

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Which one do you prefer?

I prefer Lucien

#pro lucien #pro azriel #lucien vanserra #azriel shadowsinger #azriel spymaster #pro lucien vanserra #azriel vs lucien #lucien vs azriel #cruel beauty #classic beauty

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suzannahnatters · 11 months

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HEY GUYS I'M COMING TO THE US LET'S MEET UP ~ Book Signing Event!!! ~ WHERE: Barnes & Noble Polaris in Columbus, Ohio WHEN: June 11th from 2-5 PM WITH: RJ Anderson, W.R. Gingell, Rosamund Hodge, and Joanna Ruth Meyer!

Let me just rave about my chums for a minute - - R.J. Anderson, who writes wonderful, old-school YA fantasy about fairies and faith! (Try KNIFE, I couldn't put it down)

- W.R. Gingell, author of beloved Aussie urban fantasy series THE CITY BETWEEN (my fave is BETWEEN WALLS but you have to read the whole thing)

- Rosamund Hodge, author of dark and bittersweet parables of sin, redemption, and stabbing things (if you haven't read CRIMSON BOUND what are you even doing with yourself)

- Joanna Ruth Meyer, author of heartfelt and evocative YA fantasies (INTO THE HEARTLESS WOOD is the cottagecore tree siren story you never knew you needed).

- And ME, your favourite author of ridiculously over-researched historical fantasy!

(- Also possibly a sixth MYSTERY AUTHOR watch this space)

IF you want to purchase books, you can snag a copy of DARK CLOUDS on the day, or if there's a specific title you want, be sure to call B&N Polaris at (614) 854-0339 and ask them to order it in for you.

11 June! Please come! Bring any books you want signed! It will be SO thrilling to meet you!

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good-books-to-read · 9 months

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Beauty & the Beast

A curse so dark and Lonely (ACSDAL) by Briged Kemmerer

Of beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay

Of curses and kisses by Sandhya Menon

A Court Of Thorns And Roses (ACOTAR) by Sarah J. Maas

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

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asoftepiloguemylove · 10 months

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hi! can i request a web weave about wanting to hurt someone first so you don’t get hurt? thanks <3

i hope you're doing okay <33

Larissa Pham Abject Permanence / unknown / The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) dir. Stephen Chbosky / Federico García Lorca Blood Wedding and Yerma / Sufjan Stevens Fourth of July / Rosamund Hodge Cruel Beauty / Tara French In the Woods / boygenius Bite the Hand

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catie-does-things · 6 months

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I'm about halfway through Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge, and I feel like the characterization of the protagonist makes it not a true Beauty and the Beast retelling, because Nyx is lacking Beauty's defining virtue. But she is also a different favorite trope of mine: women who are cruel but don't want to be.

#books #cruel beauty

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scoutingthetrooper · 1 year

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You fought and fought to keep all the cruelty locked up in your head, and for what? None of them ever loved you, because none of them ever knew you.

— Rosamund Hodge, Cruel Beauty

#words #text #quote #book #cruel beauty #rosamund hodge #fight

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sailor-toni · 1 year

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I read 78 books this year! It was mostly manga and manhwa but a book is a book! These are my favorite books & series from 2022 with a few honorable mentions that I felt bad for as they didn't make the list,

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exinewine · 1 year

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Finally received my Lucien bookmark, and I'm in LOVE! I ordered from @NessiArtsStore on Etsy. They even sealed the envelope with the night court insignia in wax and I almost didn't wanna open it, it was so beautiful.