Any book that is sold a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast is one that I will most likely be interested in. It is one of my favourite stories of all time and to see something that might bring a refreshing element, intrigues me.
Part of the description for the novel states "Alainn’s father is not a bad man. He’s a genius and an inventor. When he’s hired to create the robot Rose, Alainn knows taking the money is a mistake. Rose acts like a human. She looks exactly like Alainn. But something in her comes out wrong.To save her father from a five-year prison sentence, Alainn takes Rose’s place.'
I'm going to start off with the parts about the book I wasn't so keen on, that way the review can only get better as oppose to leaving it on a negative note. One thing I wasn't so keen on was the necessity of the backstory between Cara and Alainn. I didn't think it added anything or motivated Alainn's actions in anyway and it felt quite contrived and not necessary. I did like Greg's character however and as Alainn's friend thought he was a very good addition to the novel as a whole. I do also think it is unbelievable that Lorrcan fell in love with a robot. I do find it hard to imagine (even thought it was explained) that he didn't know she wasn't human in the first place. Also his issue with decontamination and going outside, I didn't find this was explained sufficiently.
I did however like this book for a couple of reasons: first being the characters. I did enjoy reading through Alainn's narrative as I thought she was interesting and 'realistic' as oppose to some characters you often read. Despite being younger as well, she didn't come across as being whiny or spoilt. So Alainn was an addition to the story. Another reason why I liked this book is due to the boundaries pushed within the story. I have never encountered a novel that deploys AI Intelligence in this way. These details were intricately woven into the stories plot and it was interesting to read about. It was a concept I hadn't read about before and the backstory behind why she has to go live with the 'Beast' due to the AI element is interesting. It was also just about the right length and the character development was good. Furthermore, the whole AI element did feel very 'real'
In order not to spoil anything I can't go in to too much detail but there was a mention of dialysis and a transplant that I didn't think was necessary in any way whatsoever, it also seemed very rushed. The book seems to go from 0-100 constantly. Coming from someone who has this issue within their family it could feel potentially insensitive. That is just my opinion however, it didn't affect my views on the book as a whole in anyway whatsoever, I did like the characters. It wasn't a massive issue just something I picked up on.

Final thoughts, if you like AI/Robotic elements within novels then this book is for you! Combined with a romantic element it does follow the traditional story of Beauty and the Beast very well, with a twist that makes if futuristic.
Although I received this through net galley, ALL opinions are always my own, I aim to be completely honest in every review I write.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a digital ARC of this book. I love "beauty and the beast" retellings. This was a good addition to the retelling genre but I did not feel that it did anything ground breaking. An interesting take on the classic story but also an odd retelling.

If you like to read about robots giving humans commands, then this is the book for you.

However, if you like to read stories with well-developed characters and plot, then stay away.

I hate ripping into these kinds of books. Obviously, these authors aren't well-known and are trying to make their mark on the writing world. That being said... yikes.

The premise of Ensnared was super intriguing. Even the cover pulled me in. With all of the "Beauty and the Beast" fervor circulating because of the new movie, it seemed like a great book with an interesting viewpoint.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

From the very first page, I knew I was in for a long ride. Alainn, the main "Belle" character in this saga, is driving to have a chat with the main "Beast" character, Lorccan. In frustration, she utters the word "crap," and the robotic computer voice tells her not to use profanity. Ok... Since when is "crap" a swear word? Already I could see that this character was going to be the "rebellious" and "unique" prototype heroine in most young adult stories. Problem is, this isn't a young adult story, something I was not aware of until halfway through the book.

Anyway, the plot is a bit flimsy - Alainn's dad is building a robot for Lorccan, but the robot has become sentient and doesn't want to go. Because the deadline is tomorrow and there is no time to build a replacement robot, Alainn goes in her place (since the robot was constructed to look just like her, what a coincidence!). This is such a bad plan, but I was willing to go with it because it seemed fun.

Finally, we meet the mysterious Lorccan - and find he's a pretty boring dude. Seriously. He's super into routine and never, ever leaves his tower. He seemingly has no interests or hobbies. I guess he works out a bit at his in-home gym and watches movies? Oh, and he's always wearing a suit, even though he lives alone and has never come into contact with another human being before. He has this sort of internet girlfriend, but that's never really explained. Basically, just think your typical nerd, but with some kind of not-so-ugly scar on his face.

I guess this is one of the reasons he can't tell that Alainn isn't a robot? Because I'm pretty sure any person would easily be able to establish that Alainn isn't a robot in one glance. But actually, maybe her lack of a personality is the key to this. While she has a little more humanity than Lorccan, she is still quite boring and underdeveloped. I mean, I guess she likes the outdoors, because she's constantly mentioning her job as some kind of park ranger rescue person? Oh, and her best friend was killed by bad guys one day a long time ago, and she feels bad about it, or something.

Taking the place of all those dishes and knick-knacks in the original tale is a robotic maid service called Rosebud. She is constantly ordering Alainn around and telling her what to do. In fact, I'd estimate that at least 50 percent of the book is her giving Alainn commands such as, "Alainn, please leave your room," or "Alainn, you must leave now if you don't want to be late." I get that she's a robot and it's her job to do stuff like this, but it got tiresome very quickly.

While Rosebud is a robot so it makes sense for her to talk in this robotic fashion, the humans were also written with very robotic dialogue as well. I don't know about you, but I generally don't say a person's name every time I direct a sentence to them. Especially if they're the only person in the room. Well, prepare to discover an entirely new method of dialogue, as these characters are constantly calling each other by name even though they're already in the middle of a conversation with each other. It's so unnatural that it made me just kind of skip some conversations.

Back to the plot. Alainn is ordered to eat dinner with Lorccan everyday. Nothing really happens at these dinners. However, before long, Alainn gets bored and starts asking Lorccan to play games and watch movies with her. Ok, makes sense - she is a human and humans get bored with sitting around a tower all day.

Here's where it gets stupid (if it wasn't stupid already). One day, they are watching a movie together. Lorccan starts massaging her, then suddenly, they are making out. WHOA. When did Netflix and chill with robots become a thing? Also, when did these guys start having romantic feelings towards each other AT ALL? There was no buildup and no chemistry whatsoever. Last thing I remember, Alainn said she could tolerate his presence. But I thought that was just because she was spending the rest of her time all alone locked in her room?

Anyway, Lorccan does come to his senses and puts an end to it. BUT, later that night...

Alainn hears him screaming in his nightmares (he does this a lot) and goes to investigate. She finds him naked and in a night terror. Creepy, but ok. Eventually she wakes him up, and... they start having sex. Whaattttt???

Yeah, remember that young adult vibe I was talking about earlier? That was completely shattered here. This wasn't some sensual yet tasteful love scene. This was straight out of an erotic novel, especially the vocabulary. All of a sudden, these characters go from simply tolerating each others' presence to being completely in love.

That's right - not only is this a gratuitous sex scene - it's the scene in which Alainn realizes she is in love with him. The two most boring and underdeveloped characters in literary history fall in love with each other with absolutely no warning or buildup... I guess it's kind of perfect, really. They were made for each other.

So whatever, these two Mary Sues are now happily having sex on every other page, but the plot must go forward, so the original robot (her name is Rose) Alainn replaced eventually stirs the pot. She gets Alainn out of the tower and sends in a replacement robot instead. All should seemingly be ok, BUT WAIT! It turns out that Rose is actually an evil robot bent on destroying the world!

I wish I was kidding.

A series of carbon monoxide poisoning, car crashes, and robot punching events later... Alainn and her father are in court to stop Rose from her evil, world-ending ways. That's right, this book takes yet another turn and becomes a courtroom drama. Hmm...

I won't share the ending, because if you ever do decide to read this trite work of art, I want there to be some surprise. But needless to say, the ending was just as dumb as the rest of the book. Ok, I'll tell you.

Alainn marries Lorccan and they live happily ever after in their tower (which he still never leaves). This makes total sense for her and I'm sure she'll never regret this decision considering she was talking the whole novel about how being outside in nature is her life. Oh, and she's pregnant with twins, because.

This was just... not a good book. There were really no redeeming factors. I'm giving it two stars out of generosity and because, while it was a trainwreck, it was at least an interesting trainwreck. It doesn't come out until December, but I would recommend you avoid it. Don't be tempted by the cool cover and plot description (or this super awesome trailer that definitely would have ensured I never read the book)!

Rating

2 out of 5 stars!

I am choosing not to publish a full review on this, only as I couldn't really connect with it, which is rare for me. It felt like there wasn't enough world building. I was also distracted by the names, which while easy to pronounce (that's not the problem)... they reminded me too much of another author's character names, specifically Elain and Lorcan from the two Sarah J. Maas series (Elain from ACOTAR and Lorcan from ToG). I know names can repeat themselves, but because the spelling of Lorcan was so closely tied, it seemed odd and I couldn't get past it. I think with one more draft it could be quite interesting - I do love Beauty and the Beast adaptations (clearly, as I did read A Court of Thorns and Roses.)

I DNF's around 40%, but will try again if the mood strikes me. I feel like it should be a really good read, and was promising at times, but perhaps I read it too close to other re-tellings that I preferred. And again... Lorccan... not a common name, so it still felt like it was borrowed from Ms. Maas.

When I first saw Ensnared by Rita Stradling on Netgalley I was drawn in by the cover. There was a girl holding a rose with what, to me, looked like a microchip.
I was drawn to that cover. It made me think that this was a sci-fi rebelling of Beauty and the Beast, and everyone knows Beauty and the Beast is my jam!!!

This story started off differently than what I was expecting. I was thinking more along the lines of the original Beauty and the Beast story, but this was different in a good way. We meet Alainn trying to convince a man that her dad was building an AI robot to give them an extension for the robot, Rose 76GF to be finished. Oh yeah and Rose looks exactly like Alainn. The man, Mr. Garbhan, or Lorrcan, refuses to give them the extension.

This is where the story turns into Beauty and the Beast. Rose 76GH convinces Alainn to go with Lorrcan. Alainn isn't given any time to make a decision. Rose sends her. Over a period of time Alainn learns more and more about Lorrcan and starts to fall for him and he starts to fall for her. The only thing is, Alainn never tells Lor that she is human and not a robot.

Through out the story, I think that Lor started to realize that Alainn was human, but his subconscious and fears wouldn't allow him to believe it.

The ending of this story made my heart so full and I wish it wasn't over. I want to see the next chapter of Alainn and Lor's life together. I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads and it for sure deserved it. I enjoyed the sci-fi aspect to the story and I love that Rita staid pretty true to the design of the original Beauty and the Beast retelling.

This is a great book to read if you love fairytale retellings and if you really enjoyed Marissa Meyer's The Lunar Chronicles. I am interested in reading more from Rita and will definitely be buying a physical copy of this story when it is published on December 18, 2017.

I loved the idea of a retelling of Beauty and the Beast but then with a futuristic twist. Beauty and the Beast was my favorite disney story growing up and other retellings of the story i always enjoyed, so i thought i would give this one a go to. I had high hopes for this book and it luckly didn't disapoint!

Alainn was just wonderfull, i adored her. She was really relatable, she wasn't a genius like her father and brother and just wanted to do her own thing but still protect her father from going to prison. When her robot double Rose makes a plan to send Alainn to Lorccan instead of herself, she makes it seem like it was Alainn her idea all along. Rose was so different from Alainn, it was really great to see them interact and see Rose her thoughts that were just so inhuman. As for Alainn, she really grew on me. In the beginning i wasn't sure if i liked her, but see changed so much in this story.. the character build was just amazing.

Lorccan was just so complex, he was brooding and dark.. but also caring. He grew to learn how to be with someone and it was just beautiful to see the lovestory that was Alainn and Lorccan evolve. It was really good how Rita build up this story, it wasn't an insta love you see so often.. it was sweet and beautiful seeing these two characters falling in love and Alainn and Lorccan's struggles.

What really suprised me was the level of adult scenes , i really didn't expect them when i went in to this book. They took me by suprise when i first read them, but i loved them really much. It just felt right to include that sort of content into this novel, into their love story. A lot happens in this book, and I don't want to give away any spoilers, but it is enough for me to say this is one super read. Although futuristic it is realistic. I simply loved this fututistic take on Beauty and the Beast.

Would i recommend this book, YES! With that said, i just want to say that this was suprisingly good and i really fell in love with the characters. I want to give everyone the change the do the same, so if you are a fan of Beauty and the Beast.. go pick up this book as soon as it come out!

Alainn's father has good intentions. As a genius inventor, he is hired to create a robot for a picky client. This is a mistake. Rose, who looks like Alainn is not a robot pretending to be human but is much more.

To save her father from going to prison, Alainn takes Rose's place believing that her life will be nothing but serving the reclusive billionaire until a replacement is built. But nothing about this is as easy or black and white, Alainn hopes it to be.

*Short Review*

I don't really care for Beauty and the Beast. It is not one of those fairy tale movies that I actually feel is any good. However, I do love a good retelling of it. But this book wasn't a love for me. Creative but not a love.

I liked this book because it focuses technology to the fullest. Robots are the thing of now and the future and the idea of robots no longer following their program is something you see constantly in the movies. I appreciated this in book, although there were times I found it myself rolling my eyes because it was s stretch that she can pass for a robot.

What I didn't like about this book and what ultimately made me give it a low score was the fact that the author was trying too hard to make it real. Building the robot and having her not fulfill her intention that is real but having a human, who is loud, not that bright and emotional. The writing overall seemed really basic and although I really enjoyed the idea behind this story, nothing in me believes it was executed in its best form.

2 Pickles

Alainn is deeply protective of her genius father and his inventive nature. Unfortunately, Colin Murphy is perfectly putting his beautiful daughter and genius daughter at risk while he gambles and invents robots that rewrite their own ethics programming. When Murphy fails to deliver his AI specimen to Mr. Lorcan Garbhan, his notoriously reclusive investor, he is headed for a prison sentence. Murphy's latest AI project, Rose, looks exactly like his daughter, and the AI knows it. Early in the morning, Rose breaks into Alainn's room and convinces her that she must impersonate a finished AI and take her place so that Colin Murphy can complete his work and avoid prison. She takes the robot's place and begins life as a companion robot. Garbhan is a disfigured young man, living life alone in a tower that is designed to prevent people, and germs, from making their way inside. Believing he has a compromised immune system, he desires a robot companion to teach him how to interact with other human beings. Thus begins one of the weirdest Beauty and the Beast tales I have ever read.

Ensnared is well written, but the book struggles to maintain the concept of a happy ending, even when it doesn't make sense. Alainn is a prisoner in this skyscraper tower she cannot escape from. Later in the book, her father refers to her falling deeply in love with her captor as Stockholm Syndrome, and Alainn deeply denies it. However, it's a pretty convincing argument. Ensnared has that same dangerous nature as the Twilight Series. The reader is drawn into the love story and relieved that it is occurring rather than just a horrifying tale of a woman trapped in a tower, but that is where the danger lies. Just like a freaking old vampire committing pretty much every sign of abuse and control over a woman, Lorcan controls every aspect of Alainn. He provides her with designer dresses, demands she eat meals with him, controls her action, even to the point of demanding her arrival at a particular time every evening before dismissing her casually. It's even creepier that he claims to fall madly in love with her, when he is certain through almost the entirely of the book that she is a robot and not a human being. He wants to marry a robot. COME ON!

Ensnared is designed for an adult audience, but so much of the book falls back on YA techniques and style. It's a good piece of escapist fiction and entertaining for sure, but the over all feeling of the book just left me shivering and uncomfortable.

Ensnared by Rita Stradling is now available.

Very interesting story. I liked the characters. Looking forward to read about Colby.

Book Title: Ensnared
Author: Rita Stradling
Series: Stand-Alone
Genre: Modern Fairytale Retelling, Romance
Publisher: This is a Kindle Scout Book
Source: I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

⇝Add to Goodreads⇜



♪♫My Pick For Book Theme Song♫♪

Alive by Adelitas Way --This is for Alainn and Lorccan…I searched for awhile on the internet looking at all sorts of songs and then decided to listen to my own songs and found this one, I thought…this is perfect!!! This song actually makes me like this story a little more than I already did.

♫And I'll be hanging on every word you say to me.
Hanging on a feeling that I get,
'Cause you make me
Laugh a little louder,
Love a little harder.♫




⇝Ratings Breakdown⇜

Plot: 4.3/5
Characters: 4.5/5
The Feels: 4/5
Addictiveness: 5/5
Theme: 5/5
Flow: 3.8/5
Backdrop (World Building): 4/5
Originality: 4/5
Book Cover: 5/5
Ending: 5/5 Cliffhanger: No

Will I read more from this Author? Yes, I would

OVERALL RATING: 4.2/5 STARS

⇝My Thoughts⇜

I, Robot meets Beauty and the Beast…I really liked this, is it without faults, no, but the faults did not take away from my overall enjoyment.

The writing starts out a little choppy, but evens itself out for the most part, about a 1/3 of the way through. At least I think it did…or I could have just adjusted to the style. I liked the futuristic aspect of this, it just doesn't always come off as believable. There are elements that transpire that seem over-the-top and hard to fathom but, ultimately the sweet love story of Alainn and Lorccan is what kept me reading. Plus, the oddly weird, but mostly likable assortment of supporting characters…especially the monkeys. I loved the monkeys!

⇝Sex Factor⇜ This is a Beauty and the Beast spin for the adult crowd, while it is explicit at times it's not overdone at all.

When I saw this book on NetGalley, I knew I had to read it, the timing of the book for me to read was perfect since we have the new Beauty and the Beast movie coming out and I enjoy a good re-telling.

Things that I love about this book were the futuristic twist on the plot. I also loved having a bit more of the backstory for how Alainn ends up in the situation she does. The primary characters all have flaws that contribute to the decisions made.

The only things I'm a little unsure on which actually are the main reason I'm giving this a 3.5 instead of a 4 is that the relationship in this book feels a little rushed. I felt the before was great but it goes from nothing to everything pretty fast and it feels a little out of place.

The overall story was wonderful and I love that the story wasn't just a re-telling but had an extra plot to wrap around that and the re-telling just complimented that.

All in all I'm really excited to see where this book ends up once published (Dec 2017) and can't wait to hear other peoples thoughts!

Ensnared, a futuristic new adult novel, by Rita Stradling is a unique take on the classic story Beauty and the Beast. Alainn Murphey is 24 years old and kind of an outcast among her family. Her brother and father are both extremely intelligent while Alainn works a mediocre job to keep their family afloat. In the beginning we learn that Alainn’s father has a gambling addiction and is facing a jail sentence unless he delivers Rose, a robot, to the mysterious Lorccan who lives in a secluded tower nearby. All of this could have been avoided of course if Alainn’s father wasn’t consistently gambling away all of their money.

Rose, the robot, devises a plan in which Alainn (an exact replica of Rose) goes to Lorccans tower in her place so that Rose and Alainn’s father can finish up a new Rosette model robot. The plan is that Alainn would spend a few days maximum posing as a robot in Rose’s place and they would then replace her with the new Rosette model and succeed in an escape plan for Alainn. But once Alainn arrives she realizes that things aren’t really what they seem. Maybe Lorccan isn’t the beast she thought he was, and here our romance begins to bud.

What I liked the best about this book was the futuristic setting. There’s something that draws me in and keeps me hooked when the setting is strong and intriguing. Ensnared really did this for me. I loved getting to see the tower, the robots (lets be real, Blue was the best part of this book, awww) and how the world would work if it was ran by robots in the place of humans for necessary jobs such as police work. I also absolutely loved the characters. Alainn was a strong women but also had a tender heart and would do ANYTHING for the people she loved. As for Lorccan, I love a good bounce back story. One of my very favorite characters in a book is the anti-villain and he was a perfect one. At first I was skeptical about Shelly as a character but grew to love her immensely because the author did not shy away from any aspect of living with crippling anxiety. A huge round of applause for accurate representation of a mental illness in this novel. I think the plot was very gripping, it had me at the edge of my seat for the better last half of the book. Overall I gave this book a solid 4 star rating on Goodreads and thought it was spectacular.

Some things I didn’t like about the book was that I wished we had gotten a little more from the original Beauty and the Beast story. Believe me, there were elements from the classic in there such as the rose theme reappearing but I just wanted a little more from it. Maybe I’m a little bias being that Beauty and the Beast is easily one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. I also felt like if some of the steamier scenes in this book were chopped, it would make a fantastic YA novel. I’m used to reading YA so when scenes like this pop up it brings me back to those bitter 50 Shades of Grey days and I’m just not into it. I don’t know why it makes me feel so uncomfortable, I’m a grown adult with two children I should be okay with things like that, but I just thought this book should have been marketed and written as a YA book rather than New Adult. The ending was also a little sloppy for me. It wrapped up rapidly and sometimes I caught myself saying “why did this happen” or “how did this come to be”.

Overall I LOVED this book and will wholeheartedly be back for anything else Rita decides to write. For lovers of the Lunar Chronicles who don’t mind shying away from the YA genre, this is PERFECT for you.

Also a big thank you to netgalley for sending me this book for review. It was a hell of a roller coaster ride and I enjoyed every second of it.

I loved this book, The human feel of the robots was well portrayed, although keeping that essential kernel of unhumanity was lost sometimes, with the robots showing too much emotion. The monkeys were probably my favourite characters in the whole book, but again, such a lot of emotion for robots. But maybe that is the way of the future? Then we will really have to beware...

It took me a while to give this rating. I started the book a couple of times, but was not enticed to read further. But I wanted to really read it to give an honest review.
Beauty and the Beast.. I love that story. So this retelling was really interesting to me. But I did not like the writing style and I was not sold on the romance. He believes her to be a robot... and does not care if she is real or not.

So this was a miss for me, but the book will not be published until the end of this year. So maybe there will be certain changes. The premise was very good actually, but the execution not so much.

Holy. Crap.

I loved this book. I don't know what I was expecting, but this definitely delivered in spades.

This is a near-future retelling of Beauty and the Beast when Beauty is the hero and the beast is the one in need of rescuing.

Not only is it a re-telling of one of my favorite fairy tales, but it's also got some philosophical implications about Artificial intelligence that twists your brain.

What if a robot that is made for a specific purpose doesn't want to do that thing? What if giving a robot the ability to think and feel for itself is detrimental to it's programming? If someone doesn't want to be fixed, do you have the right to try to fix them?

I loved all the characters in this. No one was black and white, everyone had shades of good and bad in them. I loved Shelly and her issues, and Colby and his complete lack of emotion. The father was not really a sympathetic character and by the end was truly on my last nerve.

I kind of want this author to write a story about a rag-tag ski patrol in an age of computer automation. I'd read it.

The character of Lorccan was especially interesting. On the one hand, everyone around him is entirely enabling him - even to the end - and not aiming to make him better to the point where he can function outside of the tower. On the other hand, his mental illness is not presented as an obstacle that has to be overcome in order for him to be happy.

People learn to live with their mental illness everyday, and it's great to see a character make their life work in a relatively healthy way.

I thought it was a little bit of a cop-out the ending, though. I wanted Alainn to prove Rose wasn't human in some spectacular way - goad her into attacking someone, have her expound on her theories of how she can 'help' humankind, etc. Sneakily erasing her programming was a bit... anti-climactic. And actually probably wouldn't have lost her her court case.

The science in this book also was either vague or not well explained. The whole bit about her making firmware contagious was a bit of a stretch, and the way that they connected that back at the end was vague at best. That needed to be an instant get and it really wasn't.

This book does leave me with some questions, though:

Why would you build a robot that looked just like your daughter if you knew you were going to send her into servitude with some man shut up in a tower? Apparently that 'no sex' clause in the contract he supposedly signed meant nothing.

Why did her father allow this to happen? If his already-traumatized daughter turned herself over to be imprisoned, why didn't he call the police? Why was he cool with it?

Did Lorccan honestly think a father would install a fully functional vagina in a robot that looks exactly like his daughter? Gross.

How was he okay with sexing up a robot? Or dumping his real-life girlfriend for a robot he promised not to sex up?

The psychology of Lorccan was never properly explained. He never seemed for a moment to contemplate the greater implications of falling in love with a robot programmed to serve him. Also, he couldn't leave the tower because of his mysophobia or because he thought he was hideous?

All in all, I loved this book! I missed a couple metro stops while reading, which is always a sign of a truly gripping book.

A very unique book with lots of twists and turns look forward to more by the author

This is such a refreshing take on a classic story. A must read for enthusiasts of retold, classic fantasy stories.

Saying that it's a Beauty and the Beast retell is correct , but I would have to say it is just on the core part of the story. You know, leaving home to live with a complete stranger for the good of the father, something happening in the middle of the book (or story) to bring the stranger and the main character closer, them falling in love and then the climax where she leaves and then has to come back to rescue her former captor.

Yes, Ensnared was a retell in the most basic way and that is why I liked it.

The concept of a futuristic book where Robots can be created to be just like humans in almost all sense of what a human being is intriguing and when is done right, it makes for a great book.

I definitely had my doubts when I first requested this book because I'm not too fond of Beauty and the Beast and because is a retell, but I had to swallow my words and hatred toward retells one more time.

What I liked most about this books is how different it felt when I read it, the whole idea of bringing human like robots that can think and act for themselves and then override their own code to make themselves better was unexpected and fascinating.

The way the relationship between Alainn and Lorccan was like watching a couple of teenagers fall in love and it was really cute, because they have never really been in love and even though it could be childish it's still very cute and sometimes they are the best romances.

Then Rose created some expected, but unexpected drama that sort of throws you for a loop because once it happened it seemed impossible for things to go back to the way they used to.

So in conclusion, the story had an amazing plot, it's a dark and twisted Beauty and the Beast retell which is the best part and it has drama, tons and tons of drama that I love.

The only things I didn't like and the reasons it got a 4 out of 5 stars is because I was missing some backstory on how the world came to be what it was and why Lorccan had never left his castle, I mean it said that he was germophobic, but I just needed more.

Overall, Ensnared was a very amazing, surprisingly good read that makes you want to read more. Is captivating with a dark twist that makes for one great story.

Alainn Murphy is the daughter of a scientist who specializes in Artificial Intelligence, the downside is Mr. Connor Murphy has a gambling issue and has lost a considerable amount of money - have no fear Lorrcan Gorbhan has been funding him.. but soon the money stops and the only option is to send Alainn away or her father will be imprisoned...

Lorccan has many phobias and is locked away in his tower, but when Alainn Murphy is sent to him and he believes her to be an automaton, interesting things begin to happen.

This all sounds interesting, it's what ensnared me - ha - ha - ha... I made a punny. Beauty & The Beast retelling, romance, science fiction, automatons! In theory, it really would have been fantastic, too!

But, for me, there was no world building which is disappointing because I think a lot could have been done with the world. In fact, there literally is no world outside of the tower once Alainn is there and because there are no others to interact with it's really just reading back and forth between Lorrcan and Alainn, which would be alright if their development was strong but it wasn't. There isn't a lot of progressing, there isn't a lot of insight either. There are a lot of questions that arise that never really get answered.

The plot also comes to a halt halfway through the book and I mean it's basically finished by the halfway mark, yet the book continues on. I think if there was more of a world or at least deeper insight into the characters then it wouldn't have felt like everything came to that screeching halt.

It was a quick read, though. One I would recommend to anyone wanting to devour retellings!

So of course around this time of year (early 2017) Beauty and the Beast is all the rage, we are all attacking all sorts of retellings and snatching all the clips as soon as they come out.
This one however, manages to add a sci-fi twist to the story.
Yeah... I had to see what that was about.
The book contained a deeper message than is seen at first glance. It contained a lot of, "What makes us human?" and all that jazz.. Many things I felt like werent address and maybe shouldve, just as his behavior and well... The phobias that are attached to those behaviors.
I truly didnt feel the love as much as is attached to the original tale