Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 Hunted is a YA adaptation of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale mixed with Russian folklore and featuring an archer heroine. 
 I just heard a bunch of people one-click buy, didn't I? 
 Hunted is delightful. It's the BatB adaptation that I didn't know that I wanted or needed, but that kept me up reading all night. Unlike in many of versions of the fairytale, Beauty (in this case Yeva) isn't the kindest, gentlest, "good"-est daughter of a wealthy merchant. In Hunted, she's the strongest, the most feral. Yeva's father was a renown hunter before becoming a successful merchant, and he took Yeva with him to the forest and taught her survival skills and archery. It's in the woods that Yeva feels most at home. 
 This isn't a fairytale with a gentle love story. Yeva and the Beast do not fall for each other over snowball fights or soup tureens. The castle is a mildewing, decaying mess-there's no grand ballroom here. Yeva sleeps half-outside, reading the few books that survived for her own amusement. 
 In Spooner's fairytale it isn't Yeva's physical beauty that saves the Beast or even her inherent kindness (as she spends most of the book plotting to murder him). It's her strength, her ability to accept who she is (a child of the forest, not of men) and her willingness to believe the truth in old stories. It's the feminist Beauty and the Beast I didn't know I wanted, but desperately did. 
 The end to Hunted is also immensely satisfying, steeped in magic, but also tied to Yeva's old life with the Baronessa and her family. It's a happy balance and a happily ever after I truly believed. 
 - Elyse