Beastly (2007 original; edició 2008)

http://romancebookie.blogspot.com/2011/03/beastly.html ( )

Fun, modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I am a sucker for fairy tales so this was up my alley. I liked the fact that the Beast was a teen guy and that story was written from his point of view rather than the girl's. I also loved all of the secondary characters. ( )

A good re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, from the point of view of they guy. Kyle Kingsbury is the worst type of athlete/rich boy architype when a witch turns him into a beast. Told both in chaprter form and as excerpts from a chat log where BeastNYC meets with others who have gone throught a transformation, we see the change, watch him struggle to with the love of one girl to break the curse, and become a better person. I seriously wanted to smack the crap out of his shallow, narcissitic father at certain points in the story. Not perfect, I wished that Lindy, she who breaks the spell were better fleshed out, but not bad. Have to see how the movie stacks up. ( )

So this was a fun young adult novel taking a look at the "Beast" in Beauty and the Beast. Deciding to focus on high schooler Kyle Kingsbury (the most popular guy ever) and show him over a period of two years change from self obsessed to a thoughtful and kind person works. The main reason why I gave it four stars though is that Kyle's transformation to jerk to good guy felt sudden. He got down right eloquent at times and it didn't read as the same person. The ending was a bit abrupt too I thought. I wish that we got a peek at Kyle's future after he's graduated college.

Told in the first person we follow Kyle. He's 16 and obsessed with being one of the beautiful people. After playing a practical joke on a witch (terrible idea) by pretending he was interested in her, Kyle is turned into a beast. His father's only thought is to keep him hidden and Kyle goes through periods of depression and loneliness throughout the story.

We also get some interesting secondary characters I wish we had focused more on as well. Kyle's tutor Will was great and hilarious at times. The housekeeper Magda is the only maternal figure that Kyle has in his life. Even the witch, Kendra, keeps things lively. When Kyle captures s man breaking in, he gets a promise the man will bring his daughter to live with Kyle.

Kyle and Lindy's growing friendship and love was nice to read. I do know a lot of people hate Beauty and the Beast and say that Belle was suffering from Stockholm's Syndrome (I am not one of those people). The biggest lesson behind this story is one don't steal and two look past someone's outward appearance. Kyle learns the second lesson after being shut away in his "castle".

The writing was clever and the flow works. The fairy tale aspects are updated and flow throughout. When Kyle goes a few time what possessed me to say that when speaking like the Beast in the fairy tale made me laugh.

The setting is New York though at times it's at different locations in the state. When Kyle travels up north to enjoy winter with Lindy made me long for winter evenings by the fireplace with my books.

I read this for The (Mostly) Dead Writer's Society 52 week challenge. ( )

I was hooked to this book from the beginning to the end! I was particularly interested in the author’s writing style throughout the book. In the beginning, Kyle’s character was so bad that I had to dock half a point for the book. I cannot believe that Kyle’s character can be that bad. What is even worse is his father’s character. It is clear that parents have a strong influence on their child. 4.5 out of 5 stars! ( )