Thank you so much to Amberjack Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book for my review.

I’m all for fairytale retellings especially Beauty and the Beast ones as that’s my favorite Disney movie of all time. This was not my favorite retelling I’ve read but it was still pretty dang good.

Set in modern-day America, Beau meets the very spoiled Bett while working on her father’s ranch after his mom wrecks Bett’s super expensive SUV. Beau starts paying off his mom’s debt working weekends at the farm and also starts to learn more about why Bett is the way she is and why she’s called the “beast”.

First off I love that the roles in this story were reversed and the beast was a female character. This was the first retelling I’ve read that had the gender roles reversed and it was so different but in a great way. Another great thing about this contemporary was that the first person male protagonist, I don’t read many books told almost entirely from a male character and I really enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed the slow romance in this book too. It wasn’t the over the top cheesy crud that honestly I slog through, Beau actually found a friend in Bett and starts to look forward to seeing her every weekend and talking to her.

This was a pretty quick fun read and I’m adding it to one of the better retellings of Beauty and the Beast that I’ve read.

I adored the title and the fact that it was a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast (with gender reversal)
However, the story itself fell flat. I didn't feel any emotions from Bettina or Beau. I wasn't invested in the story and at some points, I was a little bored with the story.

The characters didn't jump out at me. Bett and Beau didn't mess for me. :(

This was a really quick read for me. The book moved in a very fast pace. I have to say that I like the characters and their back story. I wouldn't say that any of them is perfect, but I like it that way. It's a bit all over the place here and there but overall, it was an enjoyable experience.

I was looking forward to this read as I love retellings of classic fairytales/books.

Sadly the reversed role of Beau and Bett didn’t really bring out the Beast or the Beauty in this book.
Beau seems to be smitten but hesitant and Bett “The Beast” is kind of spoiled and doesn’t understand social cues very well.
It took me a while to get into this book and I did finish it, but I was putting the book down a lot for a later read and wasn’t really enjoying it.

I received this ebook copy from the publisher and NetGalley for an honest review.

Beau’s family isn’t exactly rich. His mom works as a maid and his dad is laid up on the couch after falling off a ladder and breaking several of his bones, leaving Beau to take up a lot of responsibility. After an incident between Beau’s mom and the Diaz’s daughter Bett, The Beast, Beau is left to pay the debt by working on the Diaz’s Ranch for a few weekends. Even after being warned about The Beast, Beau still gives her a chance and after a couple of weekends, Beau decides that she’s not that bad.
As far as Beauty and the Beast retellings go, this one wasn’t bad. I liked how instead of being told from the main female’s POV it was told from the main male’s POV. I really enjoyed reading about Beau’s family and how much they support each other.
Beau’s character is very mature and responsible while also still being a teenager (if that makes sense). When he heard about what happened between his mom and Bett he immediately started trying to figure out how to fix things. He also decided not to think the worst of Bett when everyone else was saying how bad she was.
Bett, The Beast, lives with her dad and her grandmother on the Diaz’s Ranch and goes to a fancy private school. She’s kind of awkward and speaks without a filter. She’s not exactly ‘beastly’ despite what everyone from her school thinks.
Bett’s family, in my opinion, was actually quite awful. At first, Mr. Diaz was just going to let Beau off the hook since the Diaz family has plenty of money and the accident wasn’t that big of a deal but then he decided Beau needed to gain some character although Beau was already a pretty great guy. Bett’s grandmother was just mean. She never gave Bett the benefit of the doubt about anything, which probably contributed to the way Bett is the way she is.
All in all, this was a cute retelling and I enjoyed reading it very much. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a wonderful retelling of the classic, Beauty and the Beast. Thank you NetGalley and Amberjack Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this book in return for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Amberjack Publishing for an ARC in return for an honest review.

2.5 stars - I might not have finished this if it wasn't a galley and I wanted to give an honest review. The writing was pretty stilted, and I didn't care for the characters until almost halfway through. I stuck with it and enjoyed the second half of the book, but I feel like the Beauty & the Beast retelling was too forced in the beginning, like it was being shoved into a box to fit.

Pretty cute! I read a little too expectantly waiting for a particular Belle or Beast trait to come out in Beau or Bettina, so when overall the retelling wasn’t quite as overt as I’d expected, I was a little disappointed. BUT the gender reversal of the main characters and the modern day placement, focused on teenagers no less, circling around and falling for each other in the California sunshine, were cool and welcome. Beau’s narration was a little weak and overwrought (too “tell-y”) and it became more so as the book went on, but the pro of that was halfway through I HAD to keep reading to see how their romance progressed or not.

Fun, easy, light-hearted read. I enjoyed the take on having the girl be the beast and the boy being the beau. I had a really hard time with the writing style, I'm not a fan of reading accents and it really took me out of the book when people used the Creole accent. However, Beau was a really relatable kid and I rooted for him the entire way,

I love fairy tale re-tellings, and Beauty and the Beast is one of my faves to read so I was really excited to see this available to get my enemies-to-lovers fix.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a Beauty and the Beast re-telling. Other than the given name of one character (Beau) and the nickname of the other (The Beast), there’s very little that relates to the classic.

The character development was very poor. When I think of someone with the nickname The Beast, I expect someone who flys off the handle at the slightest thing, who is demanding and generally not a nice person, who then softens as the story moves forward and completely transforms at the end. This doesn’t happen. Bettina is portrayed as a misunderstood person but that’s about it. There’s a sort of defining event, but there’s no trigger for why The Beast became a nickname. The team not winning because their main player isn’t present is not a good enough cause.

On that note, the inclusion of the #MeToo line is sloppily introduced and adds nothing to the storyline other than topical relevance.

A disappointing read.

Not my favorite of the beauty and the beast retellings, though it did have some points I liked. It has a good message about why people act the way they do, and I enjoyed the gender swap. Beau as beauty and Bett as the beast was an appreciated twist on an old classic.

Billed as a modern day gender swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Beau and Bett by Kathryn Berla is a short but surprisingly sweet and touching read. Beau agrees to work off the debt caused by his mother hitting spoiled rich kid Bett Diaz's car just one week after she cancelled her insurance policy due to lack of money. Beau and the rest of the LeFrancois family are struggling since their father had an accident at work, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time with his sister's wedding coming up. In an effort to ease the financial pressure Beau agrees to work on the Diaz family ranch at weekends until the debt is paid. While he is more than willing to work, he is less enthused by having to put up with the spoiled and capricious Bett, and he soon thinks he has figured out why she gained the nickname Beast at her school, but as he spends more time with her he grows to understand her and even finds himself falling for her, until the moment when she is caught out in a lie that threatens to destroy their budding relationship.
While I liked both Beau and Bett as characters, I really did not think that the author did enough to have Bett live up to the "Beast" , it really seemed that her grandmother was a far nastier character. I did like how the author divulged more of Bett's story and allowed the character to develop over the course of the book, and her actions definitely added to the humor of the book as a whole. The book is told from Beau's point of view, and I really enjoyed his voice. I also loved the family dynamics in his home, the banter between siblings felt very authentic. What felt much less authentic was the romance between Beau and Bett, it just never felt quite real which is a shame as that is kind of the heart of a retelling like this. The gender swap did work well, so kudos to the author for that.
I read and reviewed a copy provided by NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

This was definitely a twist on Beauty and the Beast that I wasn't expecting! I enjoyed this book a lot more than I actually thought I would! I went into it not really knowing anything about it and I think that's the way this book should be handled. With an open mind, this was amazing!

Actual rating 2.5 stars.

This was a really hard book to rate and review. I found it readable enough. I liked some of the characters. But I just couldn’t work out what the book was trying to do. I had no particular investment in any of the characters and I wasn’t particularly concerned about the outcome.

Now that I’ve lambasted the book with that opening paragraph, I should say that there were certain things I liked. I liked Beau’s part-Cajun family and their dynamics. I liked that Beau was kind of the oddball in the family. I really liked the descriptions of the Diaz ranch. That is something I haven’t really come across in a YA book before, and i liked that Bettina wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. She wasn’t going to leave the ranch either – she saw herself staying there and running it eventually. But all the characters ever did was build a fence. Like, every time Beau went over there. Sometimes Bettina would make them a beautiful lunch in the middle of the day, then they’d go back to the fence.

I guess part of my issue was that the links to Beauty and the Beast were pretty tenuous.. I didn’t really buy the romance at all. I think part of the reason for that is that Beau is interested in another girl for at least the first half. And the lie that Beau catches Bett in, according to the blurb… I mean, I got why it bothered him. But I was expecting something a bit bigger.

Additionally, the reasons for Bett being called Bett the Beast at school were kind of flat, and everything around that suddenly seemed resolved at the end. It felt like perhaps the author was trying to do something with the whole #metoo movement and make a comment on rape culture, but it just wasn’t explored enough.

It’s possible that without the claim that it was a retelling, I could have enjoyed this a bit more. As it was, I really looking for parallels with the fairytale, and not really finding them, so ultimately I was disappointed.

I received a Netgalley ARC of Beau and Bett, a modern-day retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Kathryn Berla. While I was thankful to the publisher for this ARC and truly excited to dive into a classic retelling, this one simply fell flat for me. First, the connection between the classic fairytale and this YA romance was tenuous at best. Bett is the “Beast” because of how she is abrasive and misunderstood at school while Beau is the “Beauty” who sees her inner goodness; however, change the names and readers would likely draw no parallels between the stories. I wasn’t exactly looking for talking clocks, but it didn’t feel like enough of the original story made it into Berla’s novel. Secondly, the narrative voice rang false to me. Beau, a teenage boy, is our narrator, but comments such as when Beau describes another character as “He was a panda bear. Too big to be cuddled but still stirring those feelings in you—as if you wanted to take him on your knee and tell him a bedtime story or something. Just a big old adorable bear. Well, maybe not adorable but . . . endearing somehow” did not sound valid. What teenage boy talks this way? Instead, the entire book read like what it was, a female voice impersonating a YA boy. Finally, I didn’t feel like the characters were well-realized; details about them, such as the interesting circumstances of Beau’s parents’ courtship or Bett’s strict grandmother, seemed haphazard and did more to distract than to flesh out. The avocado orchards, vineyards, and California landscape felt better described than most of the characters, and the scenes where this was the focus, as when Bett gives Beau a tour, were the best in the book for me. It’s clear that Berla is talented in painting a setting, but in the end, while the premise was promising, libraries would likely be safe in passing this one by.

I love a good retelling and this one was no exception! Berla’s writing is cute and keeps the attention well. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.



Thank you to Netgalley & the publisher for this free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun read and I loved the gender reversal on the Beauty and the Beast. I loved Beau as a character and his family, but I felt there were just a little character development in the book and mostly in the end.

Title: Beau and Bett
Author: Kathryn Berla
Genre: 4.2 out of 5
Rating: YA

When Beau’s mom hits Bett Diaz’s fancy SUV, it’s just more bad luck for the LeFrancois family. After all, his dad is laid up with an injury and his sister is getting married soon, so money is tight, and without car insurance, the family is teetering on the edge of disaster. So, Beau offers to spend his weekends working at the Diaz ranch to pay off the debt.

Beau doesn’t mind working, but he’s not sure about working near Bett, a.k.a. “The Beast,” as she’s known at school. Her temper is infamous, and he wants nothing to do with it. But as he slowly gets to know Bett, he realizes there’s more than snobbery and anger beneath her prickly exterior and soon they become friends. Then he catches Bett in a lie and isn’t sure if The Beast is the truth—or quirky, socially-awkward Bett.

I enjoyed Beau and Bett. Having Bett be the Beast is a nice twist, and her reasons for being so angry are revealed slowly as the trust between Beau and her builds. I also liked the behind-the-scenes look at a family like Beau’s, and I found the novel both entertaining and enlightening.

Kathryn Berla believes in love at first sight and happily ever after. Beau and Bett is her newest novel.

(Galley provided by Amberjack Publishing in exchange for an honest review.)

This book has been marketed as a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I had high hopes, but unfortunately, this book did not deliver. The similarities between Beauty and the Beast and this one seemed like a reach.

I found the characters quite shallow and the story a little too plotless for my liking. It is a contemporary romance, but the appeal was lost for me.



Some other people might enjoy this, just not me I guess...

☁ THE CRITERIA ☁

🌻 Blurb:⭐⭐⭐⭐✩
🌻 Hero:⭐✩✩✩✩
🌻 Heroine:⭐⭐✩✩✩
🌻 Support Characters:⭐⭐⭐✩✩
🌻 Writing Style:⭐⭐✩✩✩
🌻 Character Development:⭐✩✩✩✩
🌻 Romance:⭐⭐✩✩✩
🌻 Pacing:⭐✩✩✩✩
🌻 Ending:⭐⭐✩✩✩
🌻 Unputdownability:⭐✩✩✩✩
🌻 Book Cover:⭐⭐✩✩✩

☁FINAL VERDICT: 1.81/5 ☁

I received this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am a huge sucker for any Disney-type retellings. I thought this book was super adorable! I liked the fact that the guy was not the beast in this story. Beau was super relatable and sweet. He continuously was concerned about what people thought of his family situation, often embarrassed to share it with anyone, but not ashamed. I think that is very relatable when being foiled by characters like Bett and Khalil who never really had to worry about money. Overall, I loved the bond formed between Bett and Beau. Plus, the twists were not super predictable, which is a win.

I'm gonna start off by saying that I really didn't enjoy this book. I was expecting a really fluffy and cute Beauty and the Beast retelling but there was just no substance to any of the elements to this story.

The fairytale is modernised so it's now set in California and we follow two teenagers, Beau, who comes from a Cajun family and Bett, who is the daughter of a wealthy ranch owner. The main plotline is that after Beau's mother damages Bett's car, Beau has to work off the debt on the ranch and whilst there he develops feelings for this girl that everyone has told him to stay away from. And that's it. That's all that happens.

There was just zero development in this novel. I felt like the story was happening so quickly but nothing was actually happening that had any purpose. There was literally a sentence explaining to us how he rinsed out a soapy bucket; "I emptied the soapy water out of the bucket and rinsed the sponge and bucket, then squeezed the water from the sponge and set it on top of the wall to dry". Do we really need a step by step of this?

Both characters were infuriating and just so boring. Beau has slightly more characterization but that's mostly because we're seeing everything from his point of view but he's just so obsessive and kind of creepy. He has a big crush on this girl at his school, who's name I can't even remember, but all that he likes about her is her hair and her 'sexiness' and he keeps on asking about whether they'll fall in love and break up within a week like she did with her last boyfriend. Beau just really needs to get a grip.

Bett is just the absolute worst. She's spoiled and entitled and so incredibly rude to everyone. When she first meets Beau she tries to trick him into doing the dishes for her when she promised her grandmother that she'd do them herself. I get that she's supposed to be the beast character but my god she didn't possess any manners whatsoever. She explains her behaviour away by saying that she's an introvert and she doesn't trust people easily but I'm an introvert and I definitely don't treat people like crap until I get to know them better like she does. There is a further reason why she is the way she is but I also felt that wasn't developed well, it was only revealed within the last few pages so we weren't really able to get any further understanding about the situation.

As for the writing style, I didn't like how short the chapters were. They felt very jarring and very stop and start, they also ended in really odd places so the pacing of the entire book wasn't great. I also felt that the dialogue was a little too cheesy and a lot of the times just did not make sense within the context.

If I had to say I liked anything about this book it's probably the fact that it's a gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast which is what intrigued me about the book in the first place. I liked the idea of the boy being the sweet and innocent character whilst the girl is more standoffish and icy. Unfortunately this book just didn't deliver for me and was just an overall massive disappointment.