Thank you, NetGalley, for granting me an ARC in exchange for a honest review!

Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairytale so I was SO excited for this! I loved all the different twists Donnelly put in the story. Let’s be honest, she’s a genius. However, the other aspects of the books were lacking. The romance felt rushed and a little undeveloped. Parts of the plot were weak. And the dialogue wasn’t the best either.

Overall: the twists Donnelly put on the fairytale were amazing, but it felt like she didn’t try very hard with the rest. It was still an enjoyable read, just a little disappointing.

Beastly Beauty by Jennifer Donnelly is a beautifully crafted and captivating tale that transports readers into a dreamy world. This enchanting story is both thrilling and satisfying, making it a must-read.

I loved it, there are not many retellings where Beauty is the monster instead of the other way around. I loved how she spun the story and captured your attention from page one. I recommend to anyone who loves Beauty and the Beast, you will love this retelling of the book. You will not want to put it down until you have finished the book.

I finished this book last night and I'm still not real sure what to make of it. I won't go into detail because I don't want to leave spoilers. I literally had to google a list of emotions to keep up with everything happening. Beauty and Beast is my favorite fairytale, but I'm not quite sure I can add this retelling to that category. It gets a solid 2.5 stars for me on Storygraph and round down to 2 stars on Goodreads.

**Thanks to Scholastic via NetGalley for the early copy!

Jennifer Donnelly does it again. She is truly masterful at doing fairy tale retellings that stay true to the heart of the stories but are so reimagined they truly take on a life of their own. I am a huge Beauty and the Beast fan, ( I mean what reader doesn't fall in love with the Beast's library) so I had high expectations, and this did not disappoint.
I loved the gender swap, and Beau had a slight Flynn Rider appeal being a thief with charm to play against Arabella's strong willed and determined character.
The story weaves in the loved characters from the original but gives life of their own but also adds so many new characters of Arbella's feelings come to life. The theme of believing in yourself, understanding yourself, standing up for self in the face of adversity takes on new meaning. Arbella's curse wasn't her being vain but needing to learn lessons on love.
I love this author's writing style. She weaves beautiful imagery into the story, the characters have so much depth and personality. So many struggles that they were dealing with are so true in real life.
I read the book in two days, and it was hard to put down. Super fun, Super Cute, Super Wonderful. A story that is new but has the heart of the original fairytale.

Highly Recommend to those that love fairy tale retelling, coming of age and heartwarming stories with beautiful writing.

well, that was disappointing! a good idea but executed poorly. maybe send it back to the editor?? 😭

I thought it was going to be a four star in the first half, but idk what happened! the second half seemed to lose all the dark gothic vibes & intrigue. the dialogue was cheesy, and the romance felt very underdeveloped. the ending reminded me of a silly Disney, which felt too amateur for YA. still, it wasn't all bad. I wouldn't say it's worth reading though.

This was an engaging retelling of beauty and the beast. Arabella, trapped inside an old castle on an island, trapped with her emotions given life, has worked very hard to figure out a way out of this life. But how? It can't be possible. Espirda has made sure of that.

Beau has been abandoned by his friends, caught in the middle of stealing everything they could from the mysterious castle. Destroying the bridge on their way out, he's left here with the monsters within, just as Arabella has been.

Only when they begin to work together is there hope. Slow, but very good.

The book started out with a lot of promise - I loved the idea of a gender-swapped Beauty and the Beast, and the pacing in the first half was pretty good. We follow Beau, a handsome thief, as he stumbles upon a castle with a lot of mystery to it. I was really intrigued as he explored more and learned a little bit.

And then the second half hit, and it all fell apart. While I appreciate that this book tried to take a feminist perspective on how the world tells women we're too emotional, wow was this way too on the nose. Like, no subtlety whatsoever. It just hits you over the head again and again with its message. Also, while I was happy that the book didn't seem to be rushing a romance between the two protagonists at first, it basically did a 180, going from them just starting to show an interest in each other to insta-love. There's other issues as well, such language that felt far too anachronistic and modern to the time period (I read historical fiction because I like feeling like I'm in another place, but I know not everyone minds this as much as I do, so make of that as you wish). Also, considering most of the characters have been stuck in time for 100 years, there was no pointing out how outdate everything was, just that it was threadbare. Some of these complaints are obviously smaller and ones I could have overlooked with better storytelling, but when you put it all together, this book was pretty disappointing.

I am always ready for a good fairytale retelling and I enjoyed this beauty and the beast reverse story.
The chemistry between the main characters was great and I loved that they each had something more than their own attraction and each other. Arabelle is trying to free all the people of the castle from her curse and Beau is fighting for the life of his brother.

A very different retelling of Beauty and The Beast, Arabella is the noble who has been cursed by The Clockmaker who requires that she learns how to love within the next 100 years or she and everyone in the castle will die. Turns out, things are not as they seem, of course. I liked the moral of the story - learning how to love yourself, deal with emotions, and be a better person, a whole person, and stand up for yourself. A better lesson than the original!

Diana Piskor <dianapiskor0@gmail.com>
2:30 PM (5 minutes ago)
to me

BEASTLY BEAUTY, to me, was full of promise but underdelivered. It had a really wonderful premise, a gender flipped Beauty and the Beast, and, as one of my favorite movies, I was hoping I would love the book. However, I felt that the character development was lacking, the story itself was a bit confusing and rushed, and was more juvenile, almost middle grade, than I expected.

With all of that being said, I am in the minority. A lot of early reviewers really liked this book, and with the parts that I read that were well done, for good reason. I loved how the author made the FMC, Arabella (get it?) "beastly" because she did not fit into the stereotypical woman of her time period. She had hopes and dreams beyond just marriage and being biddable and silent. I thought that this was a great twist and spin on this retelling and is one of the main things I liked about it.

However, there were a lot of things that I struggled with while reading this book. The two main characters really don't interact or engage much until about halfway through the book. I'm all for a slow burn, but this felt unnecessarily long. And when they did interact, it wasn't enough for me to understand how they could possibly fall in love. They felt one dimensional and bland. This wasn't helped by the story being confusing. There were lots of POV shifts, and some side characters had a lot of time in the book that really didn't seem to serve a purpose. "Mysteries" were mysteries because the characters just never followed up. There's a beast attacking people and attacks the MMC multiple times? Let's just move on to the next scene.

Quite honestly, I think it has to do with the story itself. I echo other early reviewers who are saying that this book trends more towards middle grade readers than young adults. For those readers, this book would be a great read: it has romance, a positive message, magical realism, and is age appropriate.

Overall, I think this book would be perfect for older elementary and middle school individuals. But for an older audience, I think they might have the same problems I did when reading. Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Fairytale retelling✔️
My favorite fairytale✔️
My favorite author for fairytale retellings ✔️

This book was written for me. I adore a reimagined fairytale and I love Jennifer Donnelly’s writing. She creates altered stories that retain so much of the classic but are fresh and original. Her stories raise questions about expectations placed on women to be good, be quiet, follow the rules. In many versions of fairy tales women are pretty and sparkly but that comes with a price. Donnelly shows that price. She also shows a different way for her heroines.

In this version of the classic Beauty and the Beast, the roles are flipped. The Beauty is the man and our beast is the woman. Loved this flip! Beau and Arabella are complex characters with layers of mistakes, pain and guilt. Beau is forced into a life of seduction and robbery after being orphaned. He is teased but he other thieves for his good looks. Arabella lives an isolated life with her court of ladies that are just a little bit odd and scary.

The castle is isolated and there is a library. The magic behind this version is a little bit different than some other versions. Took me a little bit to understand some of the pieces. The magic is clever. Arabella and Beau have great chemistry with plenty of witty banter. Fantastic character development and vivid atmosphere. SIde characters, both court ladies and servants, were important to the story. The castle felt cold, creepy and isolated.

As with Donnelly’s other stories, I was left thinking about the important messages long after finishing. While society might force expectations on us, individually we are each responsible for our own happiness.. With any fairytale retelling, love is important. Arabella must figure out if societal expectations are worth the pain and suffering or if can she be true to herself.

Highly recommend to anyone who loves a good fairytale that isn’t all sugar and sweetness.
Big thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic PRess for the ARC in exchange for my honest reveiw. I look forward to reading Jennifer Donnelly’s next book!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

Fairytale retelling, romance, and mystery, yes, I'm sold!

This book did not disappoint. I absolutely have fallen in love with the author and this book. It was so much more than a fairytale retelling.

The author had me totally engrossed from chaper one. I found myself carrying my reader around reading as I did my housework and chores. I just had to find out what happened next!

Recommend.

I was so excited to start this arc! Jennifer Donnelly’s Stepsister has been on my TBR for a very very long time, and I definitely never expected to read an ARC of another twisted fairytale beforehand - so a big thank you to NetGalley & Scolastic!

I really loved the premise of this - gender bent, Beauty and the Beast retelling - it’s right up my alley!

I did like the uniqueness of the retelling, it felt fresh and different. I just wish it was developed a bit more! I felt a bit bored while reading, and just kept waiting to be hooked by the story but that never really happened 🤷‍♀️

The story just fell flat for me 😕 I’m not sure if it was just too YA, or if the story was just really thin in general but I wanted so much more from this book! The world building was super minimal and I don’t think we got much depth with the romance either.

Sign me up for all the feminist fairytale story retellings by this author!! I tore through this book and couldn’t put it down!! It is not easy to write an original retelling with modern ideals, but Jennifer Donnelly did that and more! Her storytelling, the life lessons that are just as important and true in today’s world, the world building, the characters who were so developed they felt real….my compliments could go on and on!

4.5/5
Wow wow wow. It took a few chapters before I really got into the book, but once I did, I was a goner. This was so good and so unexpected. I was expecting just a minor twist on the Beauty and the Beast tale. This went in a completely different direction. It was so thought provoking and more personal than some other tales.

Beau is a thief; Arabella is the daughter of a duke. Their lives are very, very different, but circumstances bring them together.

Arabella is a debutante, being presented to society as she attempts to impress the royal prince her parents have chosen as her fiancé - but all the prince wants is a beautiful daughter of the nobility on his arm, and all Arabella wants is to design and build a city. Beau is an orphan turned thief, trying desperately to steal enough money to save his younger brother, Mattie, from death by consumption. Chance - in the form of Beau stumbling across Arabella's castle, and attempting to pilfer from it - brings them together. Upon entering, Beau destroys the bridge that is the only way into and out of the castle, and the resultant puzzle pulls Arabella from her long despair over the curse that has frozen most of the castle's denizens, and left the few remaining unaging as the curse progresses.

The curse cast by Lady Espidra, and then modified by the clockmaker, is very clear: only Arabella's actions can break the curse, and she has only a century in which to do so. But has she truly understood what she needs to do to break the curse, and can she break it in time?

This rewrite of Beauty and the Beast is a fun and fast-paced story that explores a different side of the beast - and a different side of the beauty, as well. Recommended for readers of middle school age to adult.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was an interesting and fresh take of a beauty and the Beast retelling. I like how the girl was the beast and that the curse was different than other retellings. I also liked that the chapters were short.

**Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC**

This book was okay. I loved the idea behind it, the summary, but it started off confusing as hell, which usually predicts not such a great book. I did stop at the halfway point because I just wasn't able to get into it like I wanted to. I'll give it another shot later because the premise is awesome, but as of right now... Meh .

Definitely a new favorite beauty and the beast retelling! This novel incorporates so many little things from the movie we all know and love, while also turning it completely on its head in super creative ways beyond just gender swapping the main characters.

While some of the dialogue was trying too hard and the themes were cheesy, it took itself seriously enough that it's so so so wonderful! I can be very off put by cheesiness, but in this case, I leaned into it and enjoyed it. The twists were good and I appreciated the complexity of the action, that it did not end too soon or too neatly.

There is some wild language, but otherwise this is a clean fairy tale romance that would be good for teens.

Thank you to netgalley and scholastic for an e-arc to voluntarily read and honestly review.