Cover Image: Beau and Bett

Beau and Bett

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Beau & Bett by Kathryn Berla
Rating: 5/5
Queer: N/A
ARC: Yes, I received an ARC for an honest review.
Summary: A modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. When Beau’s mother gets into a car accident with Bettina, Beau offers to work for her family to repay the debt. Beau spends his weekends at Bett’s ranch, and to his surprise, Bett starts hanging around him.

Review:

Holy shit! I was nervous going into this book because I absolutely adore Beauty and the Beast. I also had concerns about this book making it seem like a handsome guy saving the ugly girl, because that’s not a lesson I wanted to read about. But not only does this book completely ignore that kind of narrative, it’s so, so, so important and good.

Beau’s mind was so much fun to be in; it felt very comfortable, relatable, and honest. I loved his family, and his friendships outside of his budding relationship with Bettina. His interactions with Khalil were so ridiculously important. I’m very grateful for their friendship. Their discussions surrounding consent and kindness were great and felt very organic. I appreciated that Beau never put his crush on Masie, never made it something she had to deal with, and how he accepted that they were friends. Beau was such an awesome character, and I appreciate him so much.

Bettina... oh my, Bett. What an incredible, fun character. I’ll admit the first part of the book was a little slow, but then when Bett shows up, it sparks to life. She’s such an interesting character, and one that I wish I could just hug. She’s brave, smart, funny, interesting, and likeable. I appreciated her wackiness and all of her outfit changes. Her mistake was rough to read when I neared the end, but I’m so glad she made it. It allowed for this beautiful book.

I’m definitely going to be rereading this book at some point. It drew me in, and the world felt so real. The characters were all very much unique in their own way, and not copies of one another. It was a fun read, and one I’ll definitely be recommending to people.

Content Warning (MILD SPOILERS):

* Bullying (mentioned, a few instances described)
* Past sexual assault (not described heavily in detail, dealt with care, older boy attempts to force a younger girl)
* Cat-calling (but this behaviour is immediately called out for being bad, and handled really well)
* Hospital scene (not described heavily)
* Snakes (not described heavily)
* Flu and mentions of v*mit and diarrhea (not described heavily)

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A sweet and quick read, great for fans of Alex Finn. It had everything you'd expect from a fairy tale retelling, but with clever gender swap of the usual beast and beauty scenario and a beast that is more misunderstood than wicked. I liked the relationship building between Beau and Bett, and the loving interplay Bett has with his family. If anything, I wish there had been more time spent on the secondary characters like Khalil and Brett's parents because they all just seemed like such enjoyable characters.

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I received a free eARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This by no means affected my opinion of it.

💋

BEAU AND BETT is a quick, fast-paced, and light retelling of Beauty and the Beast - in a contemporary setting, which, as far as I know, is an original concept, not to mention the gender reversal. In addition, Berla naturally includes themes of family, belonging, identity, and friendship. (FYI, this book is YA, but on the lower-to-middle aged YA spectrum - despite the age of the main characters.)

The story flowed nicely for the most part, but there were some pages that just didn't contribute that much to the plot and came across as boring filler. The romance developed beautifully, as I was expecting, though it seemed a bit lacking in chemistry at first. However, I certainly was expecting a bit more in regards to character development. No character should ever walk out of a book the same as they were in the beginning, and yet, Beau remains the same bland cardboard box caricature throughout. Recommended with caution.

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Beau and Bett was a cute story. I enjoyed reading this book. I do wish that the plot didn't start towards the end. It made the ending feel rushed and it made me a bit stressed. The ending was better than I expected though. Overall it's a fairly good read.

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⭐️⭐️⭐️
3 STARS
Release Date: June 25, 2019

First off, I am usually fond of fairytale retellings and I was excited to see a retelling of my favorite—Beauty and the Beast. While you can see from my rating that this wasn’t my favorite, I did overall think it was a cute read, but there were certain things about the story that fell flat for me.

What I liked:
-The idea-obviously. I liked the role-reversal and the modern take on a classic.
-I felt like the pace was nice and quick, which made for a short and simple read.
-I loved the character of Bett (she was actually the only character I really liked 🙈). She was honest, even brutally-honest at times and I admired her for that.
-The overall message of this book was my favorite part of the book. The author really conveys the importance of not judging others, whether by reputation, class or otherwise. This is also a cute story of friendship and first love.

What I didn’t like:
-I felt most of the characters lacked substance. They came off shallow and were hard to take seriously.
-There was definitely a lack of character development. I felt that Beau (we read from his POV) did not read as a teenage boy. He came off unrealistic to me, and that was what ultimately led to the 3/5⭐️ review. He was TOO respectful (not that that is a bad thing), he didn’t even think about WANTING to kiss the girl he was crushing on? In my opinion, his character was just blah—he fell flat for me.

Overall I felt this read was definitely more for teens and by that I mean 12-17 range. It was a cutesy, clean & easy read for teens with a great message about friendship, first love, and not judging others.

Thank you to @netgalley and @amberjackpublishing for the opportunity to read and review this book!

*I voluntarily received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

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I enjoyed following the story and seeing what happened to the characters. Well written and a great read.

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I really enjoy fairy tales and this modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast was fun.

The roles are switched in the teenage romance, with the poor beauty being Beau, and Bett as the haughty beast.

The dialogue was crisp and fun, and the book, while faithful to the fairy tale, offered enough fresh ideas that it made the book enjoyable. I would recommend this book for YA readers who enjoy fairy tales and romances.

I look forward to the next book by this author.

Thanks to NetGalley.com, the author and publisher for my ARC.

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This beautifully written story showing how love blossoms in unexpected places was perfect. I personally loved it..

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*I was given access to an ARC via Netgalley and so I will be as brutally honest as possible*

Where do I start?
First of all, for the most part this book was short and simple and sweet and had a cute story between the main characters Beau and Bett. I liked the gender reversal when it came to retelling Beauty and the Beast. The pace was also nice and fast which is always nice. I also hope she keeps the cover art because it is beautiful.

Now for the problems:
The moral of the story was a little forced on you at the end of the book. You probably don’t even need those last 2 sentences because the “lucky in love” part was a lot cuter seeing as how it is actually tied in to the rest of the story. And there were some parts that just didn’t matter too much in my opinion.
The whole assigning-animal-spirits-to-people thing was interesting but it might have been better if characters were actually described. Instead, whenever I tried to picture someone, all I could think of was what animal Beau had assigned them and ended up with a zoomorphic character, much like Zootopia or Robin Hood. I didn’t even know what Beau looked like, or his parents, and I felt like that would have been nice to know.
I don’t know if this is Kathryn Berla’s first time writing in a teenage boy’s POV, but it could use some work. I think she should give more credit to boys. I kid you not, one of the sentences reads something like “I feel bad for him because he was overwhelmed by her sexiness. Who wouldn’t be?”, and I just feel like this wasn’t the best portrayal of boys for girls and boys to read alike. Her writing was okay when it didn’t get too intimate with the audience - as in I don’t really like reading ‘hella’ outside of dialogue. All I really learned about Beau is that he is HELLA shallow. (See what I mean? Kind of uncomfortable to read)

I would recommend this book to maybe younger audiences, maybe the 12-15 age range as it isn’t as heavy or deep and is just a simple contemporary read. Bett was my favourite character while everyone else was kind of shallow and hard to take seriously. I hope that Kathryn Berla has a long writing career ahead of her because this book shows great potential and her work can only get better. Just more fine-tuning and character development and this book would have easily received a 4 star from me.

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This was, sadly, a DNF for me. I rarely don't finish a book. But a little more than halfway through, nothing had really happened. Though this is billed as "Beauty and the Beast" retelling, gender-swapped, it fell short of the mark. We learn that Bett, the mean rich girl, is called the Beast at school, but at the midway point of the book, there's still no real clear reason why. The POV character is Beau (male Belle), a teenage boy who seems to live nowhere but in his head. He has minimal interactions with his peers, doesn't have any friends, and volunteers to help his mother fix her problem (a car accident with Bett) by approaching Bett's father and offering to work off her debt. There is nothing truly likable about either of the characters, and by the midway point of the book, I wasn't willing to invest any more time in a book that was not holding my interest.

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Hoping to right a very expensive wrong, hard working Beau LeFrancois agrees to work off payment on the Diaz Ranch after his mother causes damages to Bettina (Bett for short) Diaz's SUV. Beau can handle just about anything, but Bett is something new altogether. Prone to disappearing in the middle of conversations and not having the best first impression, Beau can't always figure Bett out and wonders why her classmates have nicknamed her "The Beast". As Beau's debt winds down, so do the days left with Bett as he slowly pulls layer by layer back to reveal the raw truth behind her unfiltered, yet guarded social awkwardness that is anything but "beast" like.

Beau and Bett is a short, sweet, contemporary spin on "Beauty and the Beast" with an all too real message in today's world of speaking up and out for yourself. While Bett was hard to like at times if I'm being completely honest, the reasons later revealed behind that behavior made complete sense. She was broken and alone before Beau came along and he was the only one who not only wanted to understand her, but MADE the time to understand her. Sound familiar yet? ;) Allllll the heart eyes!

Of course with stories like these you are not without conflict and there are certainly little pops here and there throughout, but it is with little to no angst (even the lie mentioned in the book blurb) which definitely works in this case. And I'm a girl who loves her some good angst, so that's saying something!

If you are a fan of "Beauty and the Beast" retellings or just enjoy a good, sweet, clean contemporary with an important message, this is the book for you!

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Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. I enjoyed this retelling of beauty and the beast. It was a bit slow to start but got better as the plot progressed. The author did some clever twists from the original story. Not the best retelling I've read but overall, enjoyable.

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· “If you were lucky in love, you sure as hell were lucky in life.” ·

I guess it’s only fair to begin my review by admitting the obvious—I’m a big sucker for Beauty & The Beast retellings! But this one? This one took the retelling to a whole new level, for there’s a very clever swap in characters’ roles and that’s what sold me the story in the first place!

Btw, can we take a moment to stare at the cover? Isn’t it just beautiful ♥?

Now, let me point out a few of the things I loved about this book. The first one is no doubt the POV—we have a first person male protagonist that manages to drag us into the story in a very convincing way. In my opinion, Beau makes for a great narrator, showing us his world and Bett’s too through his eyes and keeping it real all along (even when he’s describing Bett’s many outfits, he sounds like a guy, which is obvious but does mean the author did a great job at knowing her characters). That being said, the story flows beautifully and it kept me wanting to know more.

Another thing I loved was to be dissapointed. Yes, that’s right. I was slightly dissapointed at the way Bettina turned to develope as a character because it was nothing like I expected her to be. However, that was a very good thing. Because I was pleasantly surprised. The more Beau described her, the less I felt I knew her and the more curious I became.

And even though Bett’s story is a sad tale, it was really nice to discover she wasn’t that clichè “beast” I was expecting, but something entirely different.

Lastly, Beau’s family is also an important element I’d like to point out. The LeFrancois’ may not have it all (in fact, they may not even come remotely close to having it all), but they have love and they have each other and that pretty much means the world, right? After all, knowing you have a family you can count on to celebrate a special ocassion or to rely on in a time of need is priceless.

So, in short, I’d say that “Beau & Bett” made for a great retelling with some excellent twists, a beautiful narrative voice (and cover!), and great morals.

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This was a fairly quick read, but it took a lot to get into it, and then stay in it. I kept switching between this book and the other two books I've been reading, but I ended up just sitting down and finishing it so I could get through the story.

Overall, it was a good story, but unless you told me it was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, I would have had a hard time picking up on that on my own. That being said, it was a good story on its own and didn't necessarily need to sit on the fairy tale retelling theme to be a good story.

[ Beau and Bett are destined to be together, and that's evident right from the first time they meet. The tension between them is palpable, but by the time Beau gets to know Bett, the tension melts away quite quickly. The ongoing struggle with their very different worlds continues to provide good plot points, but sometimes there was too much dialogue and explanation for what was happening that the story seemed to lag a bit.

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Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC! I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would, so I prefer not to leave a negative review. Thanks!

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I received an ARC of the book from Amberjack Publishing via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Beau and Bett is a contemporary young adult novel by Kathryn Berla.

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SUMMARY:

After Beau LeFrancois’s mother wrecks Bett Diaz’s luxury SUV, his family faces an impossibly large bill—with no car insurance to help pay it. To pay off the debt, Beau spends his weekends working at the Diaz Ranch.

Beau’s prepared to work, but he’s definitely not prepared for the infamous temper of Bett Diaz, also known as “The Beast” at school. As Beau learns the secrets behind Bett’s tough exterior, he finds himself falling for her … until he catches Bett in a lie.

A contemporary twist on a classic fairy tale, Beau and Bett is a timely story of family, friendship, and the power of speaking out and standing up for yourself.

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Beau and Bett is a novel that you will finish in one sitting. It is described as a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and although I usually love retellings of fairy tales, this story ultimately fell flat for me. Bett, the female protagonist is supposed to be equivalent to the Beast. However, I had a hard time making the connection as to why Bett and Beast were considered to be alike. There is a given reason, but it does not really make sense to call her a beast. She does not share the same characteristics as him. It makes more sense to see Beau being compared to Belle but even that is considered quite a bit of a stretch. I wish the author hadn’t labeled this novel as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast because it really does not feel like that at all. But even if this novel hadn’t been considered a modern twist of a classic story, it is hard to feel the connection between the two main characters.

There are parts of this book I like, and other parts that I don’t like. Kathryn Berla’s writing is sweet; I did enjoy how she manages to work in big themes such as conflict, isolation and friendship into the novel naturally. That being said, I think at certain parts of the novel her writing did not flow very well. The pacing was slow, and sometimes it felt too slow for my liking. The dialogue did not feel natural; most of the conversations in the book felt a little boring to me as I read them. It is great to see that the gender roles for Belle and Beast are switched in this story, as that is the one thing that makes the book stand out. But my biggest problem with this novel is that both of the main characters were undeveloped, and although they were presented with their own personalities, these personalities were never fleshed out during the story. I wish the author spent more time trying to figure out this story and I believe if she focused on better developing the story overall that this novel would have been much stronger. I suggest this book to anyone who wants to read a short and sweet novel. This book teaches you that it is important to remember to never judge a book by its cover.

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So the story of Beauty and the Beast is my all time favorite. ALL TIME. I went into this expecting to like it just based on the fact that it is another rendition of it. What I wasn't expecting was to completely be blown away by it, and left in a book hangover afterwards.

Ya'll. This writing. HOLY COW. Blew me away. And the story? Aaaaaaamazing. I have no other words other than that, as I can't seem to form words that properly describe how wonderful this story was.

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I was provided with an ARC of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Let me recognize upfront that I knew that this was a YA gender flip take on Beauty and the Beast and while it was a cutesy version of the story, I felt it lacked real substance or character development. It was a blah/meh type of book.

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Thank you to Netgalley and Amberjack Publishing for an ARC of this book to review!

I absolutely love fairy tale retellings... especially gender-swapped ones. Beau and Bett, a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, was told from the perspective of Beau-- a 17 year old boy whose father has recently lost his job due to an injury and whose mother gets into a minor car accident with a rich girl named Bettina (Bett for short). Beau goes to the house to offer to work of his mother's debt by working on the ranch every weekend for a month. Love story ensues.

What I Loved:
- The idea is a great one. The premise is very interesting and I expected the story to be adorable and make me squeak. (It didn't quite live up to this but yeah.)
- Towards the ending, the responses via Instagram to a photo posted about Bett were related to a very important social issue (trying to avoid spoilers here is super awkward, guys), and I really appreciated that moment and thought it was incredibly important.

What I Liked:
- The distinct differences between class in such a small area were very apparent and aside from it being an important element of the story, I felt like it was an important takeaway for the readers-- privilege and wealth often have certain dividing lines, whether that's between school districts or how people think about getting a new car, etc.
- Bett's honesty and forthrightness. I appreciate unapologetically honest and sometimes ruthless girls.

What I Didn't Like:
- Unfortunately, there's a lot. *wince* I wanted to like this book a lot, but so much of it read as utterly ridiculous. The entire book is from the perspective of a 17 year old boy. He literally doesn't seem to talk to anyone whatsoever at his school, aside from this girl he has a locker next to, and he has a sorta weak crush on her. For someone who has other popular siblings in the school, who enjoys the company of others, who seems attractive and not precisely introverted.... it didn't make a lot of sense.
- To that end, the voice just didn't read like a 17 year old boy. AT NO POINT DOES HE THINK OF SEX. LIKE NONE. I'm not saying it has to be so vulgar or out there, but for a boy to not even fantasize about kissing a girl he has a crush on or getting distracted by the sight of her just seemed unrealistic and incredibly naive, even if he was the most respectful, chaste, and unsexual teenager in the history of teenagers. I feel like this book would have made a great deal of sense from the perspective of much younger teens, to be honest. Beau read as immature and super naive.
- There was so much promise for this idea and it just fell so flat for me. The moments where Beau and Bett were together were probably my favourite parts of the book, and they were limited and the dialogue felt stiff and awkward.
- There is a SEVERE issue with under-delivering in regards to Bett's characterization. Aside from the one mistake she makes with Beau (WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED GIVEN HIS REACTION TO WRAPPING UP HIS WORK ON THE RANCH), she was literally just a.... semi-opinionated girl. She's a bit blunt, but she's not bitchy or mean or awkward. Everyone calls her the Beast because of one specific incident but even when other characters talk about how mean she is or how they've never been so intimidated by anyone, it just doesn't ring true? I mean, these other characters must have led extremely charmed lives for a girl glaring at them every once in a while to be enough for them to think she's a raging jerk. Even the times she was "too honest" or whatever were not mean... it's just someone sharing a more literal interpretation of the world.
- To that end, Bett's chip on her shoulder involving how people think of her is rooted in something that her grandmother said when she was younger, which she overheard. I know small moments can shape us as people but again... it was so shallow and ridiculous that it just made me absolutely HATE the grandmother and then made me want to punch Bett for letting her whole worldview rest upon having overheard, at age ten, that her mother left because she was a "bad baby." Like. What.

Basically, there were too many moments where I was completely unconvinced about character development and character motivation to believe half of this story, which was frustrating for me. There was SO MUCH POTENTIAL and I loved the idea for this book, but the execution left me irritated and eyerolling. To me, it literally didn't seem to speak to any teen voice that I have literally ever heard in my life.

Would I recommend this book? Not particularly. But if you have a younger reader in the house and are looking for very clean romantic stories and fairytale retellings, then this could be a good option. The characters and the romance was so sanitized that it would make it a good middle grade read and could initiate conversations about a few different deeper social issues.

2.5/5 stars

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It was a light, good read. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I would have liked to and not as much as I would have expected to.
I love retellings of pretty much every single classic story of our time. In this case, we are talking about The Beauty and The Beast. I love the stort and I'm not against good retellings, especially the ones taking place in our contemporary world. When I read the synopsis of this book on NetGalley I thought it would have been really great to read it, because it was a retelling (duh...) and if I remember well I haven't never read retellings of The Beauty and The Beast so why not? I usually love them and they are often very original despite their origin and sometimes they are even as good as the original story.
I think that this retelling was good, but it's not for my age and I realised it from the beginning. It's not for young and new adults because of the way it's written, very 'middle school' age, and the way Beau and Bett act sometimes is chilidish, immature: I usually am used of reading YA stories with characters who act much more mature than the way the characters in this book do. Also, for me, since I'm a 21 year old woman, almost finished with University, is not that suitable, and I can say that most of the audience that this book attracts is more or less my age, and it shouldn't be.
Apart from the type of audience, which the author mistakes for being YA/new adult, the book was good. It was a little bit short, though. I think that this story would have benefited with a few more chapters, especially regarding their new relationship and their personal stories. For instance, we don't know anything at all about Bettina except the reason why she's called The Beast (which is a little bit ridiculous and way too immature) and also we don't know so much about Beau, we do know something more about him than Bettina, since the book is in his pov, however, we don't know that much to really have an opinion of him. I can't really give an opinion about the two main characters because we lack of information about them. I honestly saw them as plain, bland and really lacking of personality. The author doesn't even try to develop them and to make them multidimensional and it's a pity. Also, there's lack of an emotional side in this story. I didn't really fell anything for the two of them. It was really bland in that sense.
It was good, but not really incredible. It could have been better and the storyline had potential, but the author wasn't able to use it very well.


*Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

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