Synopsis:
A retelling of the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast.
Review:
I suppose it’s because of all the babysitting I’ve done, but I just couldn’t shake the image of Belle in her big yellow dress as I read Robin McKinley’s Beauty. But setting that aside, I would have loved this when I was 12. It’s swoony and romantic, featuring a narrator who’s my kind of girl. It hews very closely to the classic tale, while adding some imaginative elements such as the whispering voices who care for Beauty (so called because of her lack of same).
I have read Beauty at least twice in the last year, some 44 years since I turned twelve. Maybe I just like the horses.
I think this one crosses over pretty well between ‘girl’ stories and ‘boy’ stories – if not a bit shy on the girl side. Beauty (Honor) spends as much time patching harness as sewing clothes.
I think the horses are what make it girly 🙂
I just don’t see a teenahe boy reading a book called “Beauty”–not in public anyway.
I read McKinley’s Beauty when it first came out and fell in love with it. In fact, I was initially irritated with the Disney version of Beauty and The Beast because it seemed too close in some ways. I should revisit this one.
they are really similar. I have never read the original, though.
I think I read this first when I was about thirteen, and I did fall in love with it! A bookish girl with a cool horse, the mysterious beast, the enchanted castle that has that amazing library, it was wonderful!
It’s got everything 🙂
My brother has read it, and is completely unabashed to declare that it’s a good book…but that could just be cause I started him young and indoctrinated him while I still could… 🙂
I read both of them and it’s true, they’re very similar, I like more Beauty and the Beast though.