Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairy tale, so I will give every retelling a chance. This one just didn't do it for me. The classic story we all know is interpreted in act two of this three act story. Act one takes place before the transformation/curse. We get to know just how horrible and evil the man is. Then we get to know the beast, who is not mean at all. This story is told from the point of view of the candlestick, who is a girl transformed. She is the reason for the curse and wants to make sure the man doesn't get his happy ending. She becomes friends with the beast. The Belle character is not the one we've come to love and respect. She is quite different, although not entirely unlikable. Act three takes place after the "curse" is broken, but this story has a twist that plays out then. Overall, I didn't really like this edition. I thought it was clever, but the characters weren't really likable and it felt way too long. Since it was under 350 pages, it shouldn't have felt as long as it did. I'm going to have to mark this retelling down in the fail column for me.

I love the story of Beauty and the Beast. I have since I was a kid watching the Disney version for the first time. Fairytale remakes are some of my all-time favorite stories. Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge starts out pretty dark weaving it's way into the classic story we all know, but it has a fantastic twist that I didn't see coming that 1,000% redeems what you think is a dark twisted story. If you read through the dark parts that you're not sure you want to read, you quickly realize that you have to see the darkness to appreciate the magical bits.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy to review. 

Who doesn't love Beauty and the Beast? 

It is definitely one of my favorite fairy tales and Disney movies! I also love reading retellings of stories as it is interesting what new ideas the author will bring to the story. So this story seemed like a perfect match for me. I was intrigued by the story not being from either Belle's or Beast's perspectives. 

Now when I was reading this book, it did take me forever to read it. And then all of a sudden today I just sat down and finished it. It reminded me a lot of The Book of Esther where I was enjoying it but I wasn't super eager to read it. Now I think that has to do with the first half of the book where we meet Jean-Loup, the antagonist of the story. The best way I can describe him is like Gaston but worse, like Calix worse. Jean-Loup is an arrogant, narcissistic, materialistic, selfish rapist. He does rape the main character Lucie and that was very graphic. It is after he violates Lucie that she finds help in Mere Sophie, who is a witch. Mere Sophie turns Jean-Loup into Beast, Lucie into a Candelabra, scares away everyone else, and enchants the castle. 

Now, this is where I had some issues and I was conflicted about how I was feeling about this book. First, I had already described what Jean-Loup was like and I found it hard to believe that I could actually grow to like this character or that he would ever change. (Spoiler: Beast is so sweet.) Second, I felt like turning Lucie into a candelabra was cruel as Jean-Loup use to call her "Little Candle". Also, Mere Sophie traps her in a castle alone with her rapist when Lucie asked her to punish him. Can you see why I wasn't super keen on this book in the beginning!!!!!

But then Beast did actually start to change. He started tending to the roses. (It is a retelling of BatB, of course, there are roses!) And then he was reading and writing poetry.  And I was starting to like him! And so was Lucie. Now before you go all Stockholm-Syndrome-theory on me, let me say something; I am going to explain at the end of this review or you can go read the book yourself, get mad and then realize everything and then get mad again, yes it is quite the process. 

But before I get there I would like to interrupt this review to talk about the characters and the prose. First, some would consider the prose to be boring and that I can understand. The story is told from the point of view of Lucie, who is an enchanted inanimate object. She can only tell what is going on if someone takes her to where the action is. Which is why Rose (Belle's name, I know so original) basically walks around with her like Linus with his blanket. The dialogue is what I call quiet. It is soft (some would say flat) and moves gently. I don't mind it but some do. 

Rose is basically the Belle that we all know and love. She comes to the castle after her father tries to pick a rose from the Beast's gardens (He also tries to steal Lucie which was weird) and she comes back in his place. Lucie is likable, she is not on my top 20 list of favorite characters but I didn't hate her. And speaking of hate, I want to dissect what some would call "girl hate". It seemed like Lucie was looking down at Rose for acting the way that she was. I can completely understand Rose's perspective. But I also get Lucie's. She doesn't want Jean-Loup to come back which will happen if Rose marries Beast. Therefore even though at some moments it seemed like girl hate when it was actually just two girls trying to prevent the worst from happening. 

This paragraph will have spoilers. 

Mere Sophie is a really sweet lady but she is also horrible. 



To explain, and I forewarned you about spoilers so don't complain, Beast is his real form and Jean-Loup was just his mother's way of making him acceptable to society. Not that I have blown your brains (or at least that is how I felt after I read that), let me really explain. Beast's parents where both nobles and there was serve inbreed which caused his father to be infertile. But his mother desperately wanted a child and as Mere Sophie put it her love was stronger than that of nature. But due to this Beast (I am still calling him this because I feel that it is important to separate him from Jean-Loup) was born monstrous, wings, hooves, a snout, paws and he was feared but he was the sweetest child. Beast's mother begged Mere Sophie to change him so his outward appearance was as sweet as his disposition. Now if you are like me and you read a lot of fairy tales (or you have just been paying attention) you will immediately see what happened. Jean-Loup was formed, as beautiful as his mother wanted him to be but as cruel as his father made him. But when Mere Sophie changed him Beast came back and that is why Beast is so different. Now why I think Mere Sophie is a terrible woman. WHY DIDN'T SHE TELL LUCIE ANY OF THIS???? Lucie found this all out after Beast was turned back into Jean-Loup. She could have saved Lucie so much heartache and the reader so much hate for the Beast. I do understand that this was supposed to make a really cool plot twist and it was another way for the author to change the story into her own.  Also, I do understand why Beast returned. Jean-Loup was too much of a terror and if you punish Jean-Loup then you would also punish Beast, who is completely innocent to this. 

Oh and the other reason which I know I already mentioned but I want to emphasize this point, why Mere Sophie isn't one of my favorite characters, she kept Lucie locked in the tour with Beast, who Lucie still thought was Jean-Loup and he was still for the first month (it is complicated). The least she could have done was keep Lucie as herself but make sure she could never be hurt by the Beast. Though I will give Jensen props; it was quite clever of her to make Lucie into a candelabra and make sure her flames could never be extinguished. It was sort of screw you to Jean-Loup as his Little Candle was now his permanent reminder as to why he was there. 

One last thing because this review is getting really long. How I liked it in comparison to the original. It was definitely an interesting take on the story. The author cites Greta Garbo's response to the 1941 film adaption of the tale. She remarked about how she wanted the Beast back as that is who Belle fell in love with not the prince that the Beast was. I also liked how it was not Rose who was the Beauty, the girl who gets Beast in the end, but she is the one who sets him free.

This is an original retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but it didn’t work for me.

The story started off well. I liked the upstairs/downstairs aspects, where Lucie had to view the Chevalier from afar because she was a maid. But he wasn’t who she expected.

There was a sexual assault, which made me feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t the actual assault, but her reaction to it. She just wanted revenge in any possible way. Lucie was blinded by this idea of revenge, so she didn’t even notice other things that were happening around her.

There was a lot of description in this story. The mansion and the grounds were described in a lot of detail, mostly because the main character couldn’t speak for most of the story (you’d have to read it to understand why). This was great because I could imagine everything, but I would have liked to have more tension to move the story along. It would have been more powerful if there was less description and more action.

I won’t spoil the ending but the Beast wasn’t who she thought he was. The way the story ended was unique, but I couldn’t get into the rest of the story.

This was a book I could not finish due to the rape elements in the book. Because of those elements, I also would not recommend this book to my middle school and high school students.

I received this galley sometime after its publication date, so it has not yet been added to my review schedule. I currently do not have time to make this a priority but will read it as soon as I have time if it hasn't expired! Stay tuned for a future post on my blog. 
Thank you so much to the publisher for their consideration in allowing me a copy of this book!!

(As I have not read this yet - I am giving it what I consider a "neutral" star-rating of 3!)  
 
https://bookedshelf.wordpress.com/

I love Beauty and the Beast, and retellings of this story are usually my favorite. This one, however, was not. This one was awful. I barely could finish it, but I kept going just to see if maybe the ending would make me like it a little more. I was completely disappointed in this story.

Beauty and the beast retellings are always my absolute favorites BUT this one was definitely not one of my favorites and I feel so bad cause I would have loved to love it for sure.

reader discretion is advised. This book has a rape scene in the very beginning! 

Didn't care for this retelling at all. I was convinced after the rape scene that Jean-Loup was beyond redemption! This definitely wasn't your average retelling and I definitely wasn't expecting a rape scene in a beauty and the beast retelling. The book totally lost me after that and I basically seemed through the rest which was about 60% of the book to see what happens in order to review it. I love beauty and the beast but this was a total turn off. Lisa Jensen creates a story of what happen to beast to make him the way his was but I couldn't except it and just kept going back to what happened in the beginning. The way it happened just made Jean-Loup too big of a bad guy for me to ever see him as a redemptable beast.

DNF - I'm sorry, but the whole Jekyll and Hyde thing did not work for me on top of the rapist aspect of this novel. I gave it a chance, I really did but I can only do so much. Characters have a past and all, much like people, but I am not ok with the fact of making the Beast a rapist and attempting to make it be ok for him to be "cured".

WARNING: This book contains a graphic rape, attempted suicide, and abortion.

I’d like to think of myself as one that doesn’t get offended. That when the story calls for it I can deal with dark subject matter that comes out of the pages from an author hoping to add a twisted element to their story. These tropes work on occasion giving the story a deeper component that makes the story irresistible. I have encountered many stories of this kind and have enjoyed most, if not all of them if memory serves me right. I accept them for what they are and try to find their balance in the story being told.

What I cannot abide by though are these dark tropes thrown in without a care for what they can do if done with no forethought. It’s sad to say that Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge by Lisa Jensen is just such a culprit. It is so disappointing to me because the premise of this book was fantastic. My hopes were high that I was in for a treat, as Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite stories and I wanted my first retelling experience of the story to be fantastic. This was not to be the case.


Our main protagonist is Lucie, who we later come to understand to be a gender-bender Lumiere. She is a servant in the Château Beaumont whose master is Jean-Loup Christian Henri LeNoir, Chevalier de Beaumont, the predestined Beast. We start the story with an insta-love of sorts as Lucie seems to fall madly in love with Jean-Loup at merely the sight of him. She suffers her work to just get a glimpse of him. Though these glimpses clearly reveal him to be a snobbish, narcissistic asshole, she is certain that he is truly a wonderful man (all he needs is a manic pixie dream girl to show him the way).


One night while Lucie is roaming the castle she stumbles upon an inebriated Jean-Loup who asks to be escorted back to his chambers using her candle to light the way. From there we engage in a two page long extremely graphic rape of Lucie a la Jean-Loup. Now I want to make this very clear. This scene came so far out of left field I felt shell shocked after reading it. Those of us who know and love the original story accept the fact that the Prince is a jerk-face, but to have him become a full on rapist is almost too much to handle. There is no redemption possible from that. None! And this story, this love story hinges on the fact that the Beast/Prince can redeem himself and become worthy of love. Your love story hard stops for me right here, but I continued to the end because I am a reader and a writer and I believe I can learn from others, even their mistakes.

Some questions are born from Lucie’s attack. One namely being, what if she births Jean-Loup’s child? The only way for her to cope she decides is to throw herself into the rushing river behind the Château Beaumont estate. There is no hesitation in her decision, this is the only option in her small mind. Truly, this girl is a dizzying character. When she gets to the bank of the river she doubts for a second, long enough for an old beggar woman to appear. This of course startles her and she falls into the rapids anyway, only to be saved by said beggar woman.

Lucie is distraught that she failed in her task and will now more than likely have to birth Jean-Loup’s bastard child. The old beggar woman, who goes by Sophie, tells her she can fix that. With no more than a wave of her hand (really all was missing was a puff of glitter) she says that it’s taken care of. What the Fuck! This old woman straight up aborted a fetus to prove to Lucie that she has power. I am all pro-choice, it’s a woman’s body, and all that, but my body physically shivered at this scene.


Once the baby is no longer a threat Lucie’s attitude quickly darkens. It is now we find what Lucie would truly love to do and that is to get revenge on Jean-Loup, because of course she does, the man fucking raped her! The old beggar woman is happy to oblige and sends Lucie on her way with a promise that Jean-Loup will get his just desserts.

This is where this story starts really including OG Beauty and the Beast into the mix. Jean-Loup disregards the old beggar woman who returns as a beauty and casts the enchantment on him and his Château. However, in this story all the servants flee except for Lucie who has such a lady boner for revenge that she insists to Sophie that she wants to stay and watch Jean-Loup as the Beast suffer. In response Sophie transforms Lucie into a silver candelabra whose flames never go out.

GOOD POINT: There are going to be few of these so relish it. I was intrigued at the idea of Lucie being the candelabra. It was the sort of twisty turny story I was initially hoping for. Of course this comes much after the horrible rape scene and so any happy thoughts I potentially could have had about it were vastly overshadowed by that.

Let me be clear again. Jean-Loup, rapist, is turned into the Beast. He is the same person, just harrier. As much as the story will try, these are not two different people, there is no split personalities. They.Are.The.Same.Person! Lucie is doomed to be an immortal candelabra and we are to accept the fact that she is happy about this. To me, this is the most round about victim blaming crap I have ever witnessed. You don’t imprison the victim with their attacker just so she can savor revenge. That is such a super unhealthy message, but then again there isn’t much in this story that is healthy.

Time passes, we aren’t given a clear indication of how long, though as the story progresses I’d wager it’s only a few months if that. Lucie has been held up in a cupboard this entire time only to be found by the Beast who she notes immediately doesn’t appear to be the same. He seems to sense that there is magic in the candelabra and so takes it with him to have something to talk to. Eventually Lucie and the Beast find a way to communicate and it’s suggested that it’s by telepathy, though it’s never really truly confirmed. Through these conversations Lucie comes to the startling realization that Beast has no memory of being Jean-Loup. In fact, as she explains what happened to her he believes that she is talking about another person entirely. I told you it was going to pull this bullshit. Do not fall for it.

Due to these new circumstances Lucie feels it only right not to categorize Beast with the likes of Jean-Loup and in fact begins to view them as two separate beings. She begins to treasure her moments with Beast as he tends to his roses or writes poetry. Honestly if this book tried any harder for you to believe a rapist fuckboi could magically turn into a hipster love interest with zero character growth it would be a Tinder profile with the headline “But I’m a nice guy.”


Because here’s where this story falls flat. If the Beast has zero character growth, when “Belle” shows up what will be the point? If he forgets all that he has done, how does he learn from those mistakes? I feel like Jensen knew this deep in her soul. She knew that rape was irredeemable and therefore couldn’t go the traditional character growth route. She had to take the amnesia route, because that really is the only way for a small audience base to accept this travesty.

“Belle”, I mean Rose, does eventually show up. The fact that the author went with the name Rose is the least troubling thing about this character. She does not come off as likable – at all, though Jensen seems to think she does. She never warms to the Beast despite him being the perfect gentleman (I say this because she is completely oblivious to Jean-Loup’s past, so baring that in mind and the fact that the Beast is all great now, there is no reason for her to act the way she does). And it is heavily, I mean heavily implied that she is a gold digger. More so than ruining the character of Beast I am pissed at Jensen’s abomination of the character Belle. Where is the kind, gentle soul? The adventurous bookworm, where is she!?

After a lot of round about love triangle shenanigans Lucie comes clean to Beast about the fact that he is truly Jean-Loup and if Rose agrees to marry him he will turn back into that rapist. Not wanting that, which is possibly the only redeemable thing for his character, he decides to send Rose away. Though he tries, she demands to stay because it’s about her Father’s honor (and the fact she knows if she stays long enough she can be mistress of Château Beaumont).


Lucie then gets the great idea of making Rose’s father appear in the mirror in her room. Of course it finds him extremely sick to where Rose has no choice but to leave. Beast accepts this and also accepts that she will most likely not return. In the mean time he tries to find ways to break Lucie’s enchantment because now that Rose is gone his attention is all back on Lucie. When this doesn’t work Beast decides his only avenue is to kill himself, leaving Lucie alone in the Château. (How he thinks this will make things better for her I have no idea).

When Lucie discovers his plan she tries to stop him by summoning Rose telepathically which breaks her enchantment, because all she needed to do was open her heart. *Ugh* Rose finds the Beast in time and declares that she will marry him like that hadn’t been her grand plan all along. Beast immediately transforms back into Jean-Loup who surprise surprise has not learned jack shit and is still a rapist.

Lucie runs away to Sophie’s where she learns the truth about the curse of Château Beaumont. Beast is actually the rightful heir and Jean-Loup is the curse. It all comes down to his mother who so sickened by his beast form begs Sophie to make her son beautiful like his father and just like his father he is a monster of a tyrant. We also learn that Jean-Loup’s bloodline is essentially dry and he won’t be able to produce any children due to the evil that runs in the family. Basically negating that entire abortion scene in the beginning. WTF Sophie! Lucie becomes her apprentice, but on the day of the wedding she decides that enough is enough and she is going to bring back Beast.


She essentially catches Jean-Loup about to sexually assault another servant girl and in that moment declares that she loves the Beast. I groaned so hard at this. God Damn It Lucie! You just declared your love for a fucking rapist, and not just any rapist, your rapist. This is so beyond a troubling message to put out there I don’t even know where to begin. Beast returns and Rose accepts it along with becoming Mistress of Château Beaumont. Meaning that Beast and Lucie have to run away, which they do and we get this shudder inducing epilogue talking about their great life in their cabin in the woods. The end.

I feel like I went into way more detail in this review than I have in the past, but this book is just so problematic on so many levels. It sickens me that a story I grew up with and still to this day cherish was twisted into this rape victim blaming garbage. I know that Jensen has another retelling under her belt and that one has more critical acclaim, but it’s hard to want to touch anything else of hers knowing what she did with this one.

As a reader don’t be shy to point out problems such as these and as a writer, learn from them so that they don’t happen again.

BAD POINT: I think I’ve said all I need to.

I LOVE retellings and I LOVE Beauty & the Beast...so i thought i would LOVE this book. Unfortunately, that was not the case with this book. Besides the subject matter (which was a bit startling)...i just didnt vibe with this retelling.

I'm always up for a retelling but rape triggers are not my forte when reading. I believe there should be a warning on these types of reads. She was so obsessed with this guy and he rapes her. I dont know, it wasnt my favorite of the year. However, I like how she took it and ran, she cursed him but it just didnt make sense to me all up in the end.

I don’t really care about the rape or about Lucie’s thoughts after the tragedy (bordering on the edge of suicidal), the deal breaker for me was the writing itself. Where most Young Adult books (Young Adult being 12 to 18 years old in the literary world), boast vibrant and descriptive, flowing and quite simple writing, Lisa Jensen’s words sound to old for the genre. I would maybe even say the writing style bordered on literary fiction.

For example:

His stride is long, his movements agile and forthright, like a noble knight, like the thoroughbred animal he is. There is nothing indecisive about him, nothing hesitant. His youthful features suggest he cannot be above fiveand-twenty, yet he is in complete command of himself, of this place, of this vast green and fertile region.

And although there is nothing wrong with this passage, the language is too mature for Young Adult. In fact, even though the pace was adequate, the writing itself could not hold my attention and ultimately bored me enough to put the book down.

Like I said: I really wanted to like this book and I think the story has a lot of potential, but it was too mature for my taste. I think it might be a wise idea for the publisher to republish and rebrand it as literary fiction.

2/5

Will be published on my website www.liezeneven.com on september 2

This book was not what I was expecting, but at the same time it was exactly what I wanted. Very heavily inspired by the original Villaneuve Beauty and the Beast story, this novel begins before that story and ends somewhat after it. A part of what kept me turning pages so avidly was seeing just how the author was going to resolve this or that plot point into the story that she was telling. 

Lucie is a maid within the house of the great chevallier. When she first spies him, she feels as though his beauty is something that is worthy of her serving. However, when he takes advantage of her in the worst way, that admiration turns to self-hate and fear. 

Only when Lucie begins to fear that a child may have been made from their coupling does that self-hate turn outwards. Lucie meets with a witch in the fields who says that she will take care of the cruelty of the chevalier. 

That's around the time when the conventional Beauty and the Beast narrative starts up. I very much thought of Angela Carter's retellings of this story, but this is a full fleshed novel that offers Beast a happily ever after as himself rather than the handsome prince, and I don't think I've seen another novel quite like that.

Certainly an interesting take on the classic tale, and it did keep me pretty steadily intrigued. Overall, I liked Lucie and Beast, though as a couple they didn't make me feel anything. Lucie could be a bit too revenge-driven, like the revenge was the only thing driving her whole personality for a while. I thought the prose was pretty good, but there were a few phrases and scenes that were odd or just plain silly. 

I liked the differences to the original fairytales as laid out in the story, but wished they would have been better explained, especially regarding the Curse and Jean-Loup/Beast. It was very sketchily explained, in a "don't delve too deep" kind of way.

It felt a fair bit longer than it had to, there was a lot of nothing/shoe-leather. Definitely needed some editing. 

Overall, interesting and I'd check out more by this author, but I won't be coming back to this one.

DNF @ 14%

I was thrilled to find a new POV for this beloved fairy tale but NOPE!

Major Trigger Warnings.

The main character is raped by a guy she is totally infatuated with, is raped by him, curses him, is basically thrown into solitary confinement by him and then FALLS IN LOVE WITH HIM?

Nope.

How is this a 3.01/5 on GoodReads?  How did this get printed?  Especially for YA?  For a harlequin publisher, sure, but think about your audience.  More importantly look who is purchasing for them.  Public & School Librarians will not purchase this due to the amount of (potential) issues this will be with staff, students and parents,

Could there not have been an alternative humiliation?  Something where the reader may overlook to read the rest of the book.  The story is just tainted at 14% and is non-redeemable.

I hope another author will take this idea and do something magical with it.

Thank you, NetGalley and Candlewick Press, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Well, this was... Hoo boy.

Let me back up. I'm a sucker for a Beauty and the Beast retelling. No matter how close or how far a retelling gets from the source material, I usually rate it an easy five stars because I am just that easy to please.

However, from its clunky prose to its yikes-worthy content, Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge was a book that was hard to swallow from the start. I almost DNF'd it with a one-star rating, and it's a rare occasion for me to not finish a book. In the end, I am glad I stuck with it, so I could get a full picture of what Lisa Jensen intended with her story, but I can still only award two stars, mostly out of pity, because I do not like what was accomplished with this retelling and how it reflects on the original.

Lucie is a maid working on Chevalier Jean-Loop's estate. Jean-Loop is a cruel, childish, selfish master who even seeks to ruin his own family for more riches. In case you can't guess, Jean-Loop is our Beast character. What you probably didn't guess is that very early on in the story, Jean-Loop rapes Lucie, to the point where she nearly commits suicide by drowning. A spoiler that may be, but I feel like a reader should be made aware of it before deciding to plunge into this, especially if that's something they have a low tolerance for.

It's like Jean-Loop is the prince and Gaston combined into one character, and pushed to an extreme. Don't get me wrong: rape happens to women and it's always horrific, but I hate that it was used here at all. Especially after Lucie started to view herself as useless, filthy, and unfit to live after the fact.

Mère Sophie, our enchantress character, saves Lucie and eventually curses Jean-Loop into his beastly form. Lucie decides to stay, wanting to watch Jean-Loop suffer until her vengeance is satisfied, so she is transformed into an enchanted candlestick. Shortly after that, Beast seems to forget everything about being Jean-Loop and what he did to Lucie, and the more traditional Beauty and the Beast tale begins.

This was about where I almost deleted this book off my ebook library. The rape scene was gross enough, but I'm of the strong opinion that if you're going to do dark stuff like that, you need to commit to it 110 percent. You can't just turn back and give the committer of the crime memory loss and paint him as being suddenly sweet and gentle because how disgusting is that?

The truth is, Jensen made Beast and Jean-Loop two different characters with two different consciousnesses entirely. That was almost worse, because why even have rape in the first place? There are plenty of terrible things Jean-Loop could've done to make Lucie hate him without adding rape to the equation, so I am not giving Jensen a pass on this one. This was nothing short of disappointing. I couldn't even like the twist that Beast was the real person and that Jean-Loop was the real curse that needed to be broken all along. It turned Jean-Loop from being a horrible villain to a ridiculous one, and it didn't do any favors for Beast, either; I found him to be terribly boring, and his child-like naiveté was so grating.

Not even Rose, the Beauty character, could save this book. In fact, I hated how self-serving, conniving, and fake-sweet she was. Normally, I love female characters like that--the more Slytherin, the better--but it rang so wrong in this story.

I suppose the reason for the two-star rating is for a few redeemable reasons. I enjoyed Mère Sophie's character as well as how Lucie as a candlestick was designed to illuminate Jean-Loop's crimes and misery. However, it got extremely old how she couldn't move on her own or speak, until she figured out how to do the latter via mental connection. I swear at least 80 percent of this book was description, and that made for an incredibly boring time because the setting stayed largely the same. I suppose some part of me does respect what Jensen tried to do to put a new spin on this tale as old as time, but far too much of it angered, disgusted, bored, or disappointed me.

And, if I'm being really honest, I am pretty dissatisfied with the "Beast stays a Beast and somehow that's a reward for the female character's hardships" ending. Liz Braswell's own Beauty and the Beast retelling did that, and it just didn't do it for me. Which is weird, because normally I'm into the monster thing. Maybe it's the complete break from tradition that I don't like.

I think that this book might have a higher general rating if more people had finished it and seen what the author did with it as a whole, but Jensen gambled way too much on people getting through the rape scene and the hint of romance between rapist and victim that turned a lot of people off; she waited way too long in her narrative to reveal what was actually going on, something that doesn't work when you have the typical romantic hero do something that extreme to a potential female love interest. Either the reveal needed to happen sooner, making this a much different story, or the rape scene should've been nixed for something else.

Of course, this is easy to declare in hindsight as a reader. I've heard Jensen's Captain Hook retelling is much better and more digestible. I'm willing to give her a second chance, but I will do so with a fair amount of trepidation.

I enjoyed the retelling aspect of this story beauty and the beast is my favorite and the atmosphere of the writing was very nice I could picture the scenery in my mind but I had a hard time connecting to the characters the writing style was a little different then I’m use to it ended up taking me a long time to finish.

I have to agree with most other reviewers on this book. I started it a while ago but stopped after a certain scene (rape of the MC) and decided to wait on the reviews to see if I would want to continue. I need those scenes done a certain way or else I just become repulsed and queasy about a book.

Like most bibliophiles the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorites and I am always eager to snatch up the latest retelling, but unfortunately even after trying to get past that early scene, I couldn't find myself finishing or enjoying this book, 

DNF.