I don't think I knew what I was getting into when I started reading this book. I thought it was a YA book. It was definitely not a YA book. 
 In a nutshell, this book is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. However, it is not a complete retelling. For whatever reason, the author decided to split the book up. I would have enjoyed it much more if she'd just held off and then released the entire work at once. As it is now, I don't feel like I was able to really get into the story. 
 The story flowed along well. The reader is kept in the dark about the beast, the nature of the curse, the source of the curse...there's enough mystery to keep you reading. (Sadly, none of it is revealed in this installment.) It's not nearly as dark as some reviewers have made it out to be-- I was prepared for much worse. However, what I wasn't prepared for were all the random sex (and almost-sex) scenes. They were completely unnecessary (and weird....I'm sure there has to be some explanation for the wood-nymph thing...right??) and there was only one that actually lent to the storyline at all. But then again, that's probably just my fault for not realizing ahead of time that it was supposed to be *that* kind of book. Like I said, I thought it was supposed to be YA. 
 There were a couple of occasions where the author used a modern word or term that just clashed with the entire world she'd built and jarred me out of the story. Other than that, the writing was pretty consistent. 
 I liked the story well enough (although I could definitely do without the random sex) but I feel like I'm not rating a whole book. This isn't the first book of a series-- it's the first part of one book that's been broken into pieces.