I wanted this to be amazing. It just wasn't that for me though. I liked the concept but it lacked on the execution for plot.

A lot of points dragged and I wish there was more on why Lorcan was the way he was. And less of Alainn's family not believing her.

I will write a proper review closer to the publishing date... And when my rage is lower.

Wow. I was a bit skeptical when I saw some negative reviews, so I went in with little to no hope. But this book hooked me from chapter one and had me up until I finished it a couple of hours later, I literally could not sleep until it was done.
The pacing is amazing, and it keeps you on your toes wishing for more which is impressive considering the story is known by all. The whole AI and robotic approach is incredibly well researched, though a bit too far fetched at times. And unfortunately the action secuences are blurry, hard to picture and sometimes hard to read. The drama reaches peak point towards the end and I was so anxious for the characters and wrapped in the situation it was imposssible to do anything but finish the story.
All in all, though nowhere near perfect, it makes a good B&B retelling.

Oh my

This book was great. The world building was quite different, the characters interesting. I really enjoyed it very much. Thanks

I saw this book on Kindle Scout and immediately nominated it because of the description and sample chapters. Ensnared details the life of a struggling young woman in a world of robots and tech. Alainn loves the great outdoors and her life is fueled by a love of the ski hill and her career with the rescue patrol. In order to save her father from prison, she commits herself to a life of locked doors and broken promises but is soon led on a pathway that she would never have expected... I loved every minute of it, however, I thought the sex scenes were a bit much - this is the perfect book for a teen or young adult, so the author could have toned it down a little.
The cover has been changed a few times, but as of this review, it has a rose with binary printed over it. I think that one fits the best. Not that I judge books by their covers haha.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When I saw this book on NetGalley, what jumped out to me from the synopsis was "A Near Future Retelling of Beauty and the Beast ". Here's the thing--I LOVE Beauty and the Beast. It's my most favorite fairy tale and Disney movie. I did my happy dance, gave a loud, off-key rendition of Tale As Old As Time, and added it to my shelf. I even did my happy dance!



Alainn's father is an inventor (just like old Maurice). He's been commissioned to build an AI robot for Lorccan Garbhan (Beeeeaaaassst!). He designs Rose 76GF but is not able to hand her over within the deadline Mr. Garbhan has given. To prevent her father from being sent to prison, Alainn is convinced by Rose to take her place and act like a robot. What follows next is a heartwarming romance, meddling AI robots, and a story that will definitely make all the Beauty and the Best fans swoon.



As you may have already guessed, Alainn and Lorcann fall in love. Their romance has its sweet moments and is slow to pick up. A thing to appreciate in this story is that Alainn voluntarily takes up the robot’s place. There are no questions of Stockholm syndrome here, like in the original story. While there is no Lumiere or Cogsworth, there are other cute supporting characters like the monkey robot, Blue, and the meddling AI, Rosebud.

The world building wasn’t really impressive. The setting could have been explained a little bit better. How did this world come to be? Why and how did AI become the norm? It would have been better if this had been explained.

I really liked reading about Lorccan and Alainn and would’ve preferred it if the author focused on them alone. The plot also includes some conniving on the AI front, which I cannot delve into for fear of spoiling the book. But this scheming is introduced towards the last 30% of the book and I was increasingly getting annoyed with it. Lorccan and Alainn still remain the central theme but this plot should have been foreshadowed more clearly. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to read in spite of it being introduced late into the book. Another problem I had was with the tragic backstories of the main characters not being explained clearly enough.

Rating:

I love Beauty and the Beast. I may have a few problems with the book but I found the story very fast-paced and intriguing. I was not able to put the book down at all and for giving me such an experience, I’m giving it 4 stars!

This is one of the first "new adult" books that I have read. Actually, I probably have read books that would fit in that genre before, but I haven't been cognizant of it.
This was a really interesting read! If you mixed Beauty and the Beast with robots and artificial intelligence, this is what you would get!
Stradling's characters were likable and well developed. I thought that she left out a few too many details about some of the characters though. For example, she could have given more explanation about Lor's situation and childhood; it just felt like there were a few holes. I also think it was weird that Shelly just went with it and didn't say anything to Lor about the weird choices he was making.

***SPOILER ALERT***
I also don't know if I totally believe that Lor wouldn't have figured out that Alainn wasn't AI...especially when they get REALLY close...
***

I think 20-somethings who enjoyed reading Twilight and Cinder will enjoy this book. It was a quick read and I really enjoyed it!

Thanks for the advanced reader copy NetGalley!

I received an advance copy of this book from Net Galley.

There is something compelling about this story, but in the end, it isn't a *good* book. I read it quickly and was sort of interested in how the author would wrap things up, but there is is just utterly unlikely that I kept getting pulled out of the story. To begin with, the world-building isn't well done. It's clearly some sort of near future, with robot bus drivers and android police officers, but it's never established exactly what the limits of robotic power are, or how humans interact with them. So many unanswered questions. They all seem to take for granted that Rose has achieved singularity -- I would think there might be some actual interest and discussion around that, instead of just a shrug. Why does Dad make all his robots in the image of his daughter but give them his dead wife's name? CREEPY. What made Lorccan's parents so crazy? Why did he just take their word for it that he was basically allergic to the outside? How does he have sex with a human woman and still think she's an android? (Even if it WAS his first time, dude, come on.) Why does every one think it's ok to leave Lorccan holed up in his tower and not interacting with the outside world, when the guy CLEARLY needs medication and intensive psychotherapy? ROBOT MONKEY BUTLERS? (Ok that part is awesome.)

I kept reading, thinking there would have to be some kind of wrap-up. But no. Lorccan wasn't angry at Alainn for deceiving him. Connor wasn't particularly worried about his daughter locked up pretending to BE an android. They all just took creepy robot Rose's word for everything being fine. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? And then suddenly we learn that Alainn has massive PTSD and had been kidnapped as a teenager -- but being locked up by weird dude in a tower pretending to be a robot, not a problem, no weirdness there! And in the end, hey, happily ever after, she's PREGNANT WITH TWINS for pity's sake, but she is seriously going to raise these kids in a windowless tower with a dad who can't even go to their soccer games because plants are scary?

I like a good Beauty and the Beast story, or really any fairy tale retellings. The Lunar Chronicles are amazing postmodern takes on the theme. This tries really hard to be something like that, and something like J.D. Robb, and something like a traditional romance, and something like a thriller, and doesn't particularly succeed at any of them. A little more time to get to know the characters, a little more world-building, leave out the abrupt point-of-view switches, and you'd have something interesting here. The book isn't due out until December, so hopeully there's some intensive editing and re-working to tighten things up.

2 stars (Really 1.5) because the action is compelling enough to keep me reading, even though the plot made no sense whatsoever.

I've probably read more Beauty and the Beast retellings than I'd like to admit (this is at least the fourth or fifth in recent memory)--but I do like the idea of taking a familiar concept and reworking the details so that despite the basic premise, it feels new and enriching.

Ensnared was provided to me as an ARC via NetGalley, but I also purchased an ebook copy for 99 cents, so my opinions are not affected one way or the other.

Overall, this book strikes me as a rather unconventional, but enjoyable retelling. The magic of the fairytale is swapped out instead for robotics and AI and our characters are given more complex backstories and a lot of the basic details are switched around in a good way. The villain of the tale is also given a much different motivation than I've ever seen, which was refreshing, and we're given more to ponder than just "can you love someone despite their ugliness and flaws?" I give it high marks for its prose, creativity, and original outlook. I very much enjoyed Ensnared.

But, unfortunately, there are a few things I would quarrel with.

This mostly has to do with the author not elaborating/explaining/wrapping up parts of the plot. The blurb, for example, serves to tell us a decent bit of the backstory when in reality a book should be fully comprehensible without a person reading the blurb; this isn't really the case with Ensnared. If I hadn't read it prior to starting, I wouldn't have quite guessed that Alainn's father had accepted money to create an AI robot for Lorccan and that Alainn had a deep mistrust of Rose because these elements are vaguely and barely touched on.

Another issue is the big reveal of Alainn and Lorccan's past experiences--this is a bit poorly worked into the story because only a few small details feed into why they're important and the issues caused as a result are far too easily overcome or they're just kind of not addressed like they ought to be, which is sad because working these in better would have had a deeper emotional pull, make the characters more complex, and overall made the book feel more polished. As it stands, their backstories just kind of seem hazardously thrown in while the focus goes to seeing Alainn and Lorccan together and also focus on the robotics/AI part with Rose.

Spoiler

So the big reveal for Alainn is that her dad's gambling caused her and her friend to be kidnapped when she was 17 because he owed someone money. Alainn is alluded to have been raped and Cara ends up dead when the car the girls were in is sent over a cliff. The details that allude to Alainn having trauma because of this are essentially that she doesn't like elevators due to nearly dying in a car, she hasn't had relationships because she was assaulted, she dislikes robots because one helped kidnapped her and her friend, and she has felt depressed because she misses Cara and feels lik she played a role in her death. But really, outside of a few small mentions, these things don't really impact the story. She rides elevators begrudgingly, she has very little resistance to being okay with having sex with Lorccan, she doesn't really struggle with depression. We're mostly just told by Rose and Rosebud and Colby that Alainn was ever suicidal/sad.

As for Lorccan, we get told that he's in this tower because he had crazy and highly abusive parents who were convinced he'd die if he left or was exposed to any germs so he's disfigured by his mom to quell to leave, yet then we're told that Lorccan doesn't actually have any poor health problems like he's been led to believe... yet the story just kind of goes "eh, Lorccan will stay in his tower with Alainn and they make do." Like... if you're gonna say that the whole time he was trapped and unhappy in this tower... isn't the point for him to learn to not fear germs and to slowly start making his way to leaving the tower and interacting with people? Like, he has very little growth except that instead of being 1000% antisocial he's just very fixated on Alainn and having her in his tower with him all the time.

So, I will say that I feel this could have been an even better book and that I do take away some stars due to these shocking details about abuse/trauma not having the kind of importance and attention that they ought to have had, since the author decided to include them as major pieces to the character's backstories.

Still, not a bad read! I liked it a lot.

Be sure to read the original review over at Deluded Rambling.

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

Spoiler

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.

Spoiler

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)!