A review by brokenrecord
Bitterburn by Ann Aguirre

3.0

3.5 stars. Mixed feelings about this. In general, I love Beauty and the Beast retellings – there's something inherent to the premise that is the exact kind of thing I gravitate towards in romances (hate to love, slow burn, mistaken first impressions, falling for someone because of their character rather than lust at first sight, etc.). And I've enjoyed some of Ann Aguirre's work before, so this looked very promising. I think that overall it was solid, and I respected and understood why Aguirre made the choices she made, but… those choices also kind of affected the quintessential thing that attracts me to Beauty and the Beast retellings in the first place. Njal is a bit prickly in his first encounter with Amarrah but is basically respectful and kind after that, and while there's nothing objectively wrong with that choice, as I mentioned, part of what I like about Beauty and the Beast retellings is the hate to love, slow burn element, which never really existed here.

Spoiler

Amarrah starts thinking about inviting him to her bed after her like third encounter with him, and they kiss pretty early on. I get why some reviewers referred to this as a slow burn, but for me, it doesn't qualify — when I think about slow burn, I don't just think about characters taking awhile to hook up, but also that the feelings take time to develop, which wasn't the case here. I did like that Njal doesn't actually let Amarrah see him for a long time, so it did have the falling-for-character-not-appearances thing going for it, and when she does finally get glimpses of him, the book really goes for Amarrah being super horny for Njal in beast form, which was kind of a fun flip from the normal way the story goes, so I did enjoy that.

And I did like both characters a lot. And the goats! Which is why it's hard for me to really discuss/rate this, because I feel like a lot of the things that worked less well for me are just because I went into this with a very specific idea of what I was expecting/looking for, whereas Aguirre was trying to do something different with a tale that has been told thousands of times before. So that's why even if it didn't appeal to me as much as the original story beats do, I can't fault her for trying something different, and I can totally see how it would appeal to others. For me, this was 3.5 stars, but if you're not as picky or particular as I am and it sounds like something you might enjoy, then there's a good chance you will! I think the story was done really well, it just wasn't exactly what I wanted.