I'm always down for a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, though it is largely a story of Stockholm syndrome and a woman settling for a partner who has some serious issues with violence. Most of us will always turn up for a modernization of it, and I was excited to read this book. Though the writing is lush and the setting imaginative, I found some things in the plot problematic.
I was definitely caught off guard by the rape.
Lucie goes to the castle as a servant, and once she sees Chevalier de Beaumont, despite wanting a wholly different life than the one her mother had, despite knowing that her position is tenuous in this new household, and despite hearing that the Beaumont line is cursed, she needs only to see him to become obsessed.

The rape was shocking, but in a way, it seems as if that were the only thing which *could* happen; Lucie was entranced by someone who she'd heard was cruel, but it was as if all of her sense drained out of her, because he was "beautiful."And that's all it took. This seemed to me to underscore a complicity in her rape - well, she'd been raped, sure, but she HAD been mooning over him, right? And she put herself in his way.

That was disturbing enough, but that after that violence, that she eventually a.) becomes inhuman, rejecting her body deliberately for a body which could not be hurt, and b.) is still used by him as his light - and longs for him when he is gone, takes a traditionally clunky but redemptive romantic fairy tale and turns it into something darker. Lucie goes from being desperate enough to suicide to longing again, in just as obsessive a fashion - for the attention and affection of this Beast.

This is a gorgeously written book, and many will enjoy the sweeping romanticism of a dangerous lover, and a vulnerable innocent. But I think the subtext is more than a little confused, and once one includes the violence and misogyny of rape as a plot device, the book is lost for me.

Although I enjoyed the lovely writing, the enchanting world-building, and the truly intriguing take on a well-worn tale, in the end it simply was not enough to outweigh certain tragedies of character that kept my heart from fully investing in the story. I was so excited to read this unique novel and I am sorry that I cannot provide you with a more favorable response. I do, however, believe that there is an audience out there that will swoon for its magic.

~ARC provided by NetGalley~

First of all, I love me some fairytale re-tellings...yum! Second, I absolutely love Beauty and the Beast, it is my favorite. That being said it pains me to say I DNF this book...... I barely got into this book...... I did not make it out of the first chapter. Sorry to the author but the scene in this first chapter was too much (not even going to go into detail because I've previously read others have) and I just could not go on.

Hard read. I didn’t enjoy the book at all and it honestly was a little traumatic for a lover of the Disney version. The rape made me honestly hate this book.

Such a disappointment since I’d been anticipating this book since I saw the cover the first time last year.

Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge is a unique retelling of Beauty and the Beast that takes an unexpected approach to the story. Told through the perspective of a chamber maid, this version takes a darker turn, inverts expectations, and questions what we think we know about beauty and monstrousness.

This is one where saying to much will spoil the story, but you should be aware that there is a trigger warning for rape, and one that takes place early on. While that scene is not overly graphic, it also does not look away. But keep in mind that this is also not the story you think it is, so reading to the end pays off in a good way. I think if you expect a traditional version of Beauty and the Beast you might be very turned off, but just trust me that the book in NO WAY excuses the rape or offers redemption to the rapist. It just takes awhile to reveal how that is true. There are also trigger warnings for suicidal ideation and intent, and abortion, as well as violence toward animals.

Ultimately, I thought this was an interesting take on a classic fairy tale that plays with familiar tropes in unprecedented ways. It also explores important ideas. It was well written and a very quick read. I do recommend it, and guarantee that this isn't something you've seen before. I agreed to read and review an early copy of this book from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This book beats all the retellings I’ve read so far!
From the moment I saw the cover I was curious, then I read the blurb and I knew right then and there that I need to read this book, I WANT to read this book.

P L O T
A revenge plot, but then it isn’t. It’s so much more. I don’t know where to begin with this book.

A young maid seeking justice for what’s been done to her, but then she discovers the secrets that lay within the family of Chateau Baeumont. So many plot twists, the story is clearly its own fairytale.

A Tale of Love and Revenge; it’s not just love between the two main characters but also the love of a mother to a child.

I must say, the history and secrets kept hidden in the chateau is very sad. Our purpose for our actions may be made purely out of love but we sometimes fail to foresee the consequences and we may end up paying it for the rest of our lives or sometimes be haunted by it even in death.

C H A R A C T E R S
So many wonderful characters all created with much thought and care. One is driven by revenge, one beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside, one was hidden in the dark for many years and knows not of the world outside, one seems to be thinking only of only paying off a debt of gratitude and bargain <i>(I really have mixed feelings with this one because sometimes I think the person’s goal is wrong but there are also times where this person is selfless.)</i> and two are crazy for money and would hope for their sibling to die so there will be one less person to divide the family’s money with.

Until the very end I wondered if Lucie will be the one to break the curse. She put the curse on the chevalier in the first place, and the irony if she’d be the one to break it in the end.

W R I T I N G
Lisa Jensen is a wonderful storyteller. It’s like after she saw or read Beauty and the Beast, she took a step back and analyzed the entire story in a different angle with a different light. She explains how this wonderful story came to be in her author’s note by the end of the book.

O V E R A L L
It was beautiful, magical and touching. I cried a couple times while reading this, my little heart aching for the characters. I love the way this book ended and of course there are no open doors left.

If you love retellings and Beauty and the Beast with lots of plot twists, magic and emotion, then this book is for you. Though I’d recommend this to anyone because the message is clear and it needs to be delivered.

I tried, I really tried, but I also really should have read the reviews of the ARC first before requesting it.. This way, I would have saved myself a lot of anxiety and time trying to read this.
The writing itself, while good. However, I expected more because back when I read an excerpt of Jensen's "Alias Hook", I was rather beguiled by her exquisite prose. In this book, though, the style is rather depressing and simple, since the protagonist has a way of putting herself down.
I would have appreciated a trigger warning for the graphic and extensive rape scene (chapter 4) and the suicide attempt (chapter 6). I do not appreciate rape in my YA lit, not even if it furthers the plot, and cannot condone a complete 180 of a rapist whom the protagonist subsequently falls in love with.
Also: sarcastic awesome points for disenfranchising a rape victim and taking away her agency by quite literally objectifying her (in this case: turning her into a candle holder).
I am sorry but I had to DNF for the sake of my mental well-being (my anxiety was triggered like crazy reading this), but I wouldn't necessarily absolutely discount this book for everyone. There might well be some readers who find some important and worthwhile themes and a valuable reading experience in this. I am just unfortunately not one of them.

I was extremely excited for this book as I love the tale of Beauty and The Beast. I was even more excited because this story revolves around the beast. I must say thank you Net Galley for letting me read and provide an honest review for this book, it is an honor.

This book fell flat for me though, while it was a good story I wasn't enthralled by it. It was decently fun to read, the plot was good. My main issue with this story was the way things were described. I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in retellings, as like I said it was an enjoyable read. It just wasn't as good as I hyped it up to be.

I rate this book 2.5 stars, I did enjoy it but not as much as I would have liked. There were a lot of things I found problematic, as well as things that I thoroughly enjoyed. I may still give this book another shot at a later date.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars because I am still torn about this book. Before I started reading I was very nervous seeing the negative reviews on Goodreads about how this book had ruined the original story. As Beauty and the Beast is my all time favorite Disney movie, I had low expectations for a re-telling. WARNING: in order to explain my mixed emotions- there will be spoilers. I think it is impossible to talk about this book without including any spoilers.

The first half of this book was very dark. More than I would ever expect in a novel advertised for young adults, which I think is one of this book's major flaws. The first quarter of the book involves the main character, Lucie, being raped by Jean-Loup, the chevalier of Chateau Beaumont who later becomes the "Beast." After Lucie determines that she is pregnant from the rape, she attempts suicide. These events end up being important to advancing the plot as they are the foundation for Lucie's desire for revenge on Jean-Loup which ultimately triggers his curse and transformation to the Beast we know from the story. Lucie ends up being tied in with the curse as well and becomes a sentient candelabra to witness his suffering.

The fact that Jean-Loup, the serial rapist, is also the equivalent character to the main love interest from the original tale is another flaw for many reviewers. The author attempts a plot twist that occurs much later (for readers who can stomach the brutal beginning) in which Lucie discovers Jean-Loup and the Beast are basically two different people- in summary, Jean-Loup is a changeling who takes over the Beast's body and the good, kind-hearted Beast is the actual true form all along.

Like most readers, I am of the opinion that rapists are not redeemable characters and should not be excused or ever portrayed as a love interest. However, while reading, I did feel the difference between Jean-Loup and the Beast's characters was stomach-able in order to keep enjoying the story. I think, as readers of fairy tales, sometimes we do have to set aside the overall moral in order to appreciate a story. Like I said, Beauty and the Beast was my world as a kid and I will defend it to my death. But...I will admit, that if you take a closer look at the plot- it is basically a woman who falls in love with the monster who is holding her prisoner. What kind of moral is there in Stockholm syndrome? Why should we expect a better moral from this re-telling?

Overall, I understand the bad reviews and can agree 100% with them. I also enjoyed the second half of this book despite those issues. I thought this re-telling, although dark, was original and creative. I liked that both Lucie and Rose got a happy ending. I also, surprisingly, really liked Rose's character. I mean, the Stockholm syndrome part makes so much more sense if she was really after his money (or his library...) all along!

I don't know that I would ever recommend this book. But I may not not recommend it, if that makes sense.

This book was bizarre.... I tried getting through it but the plot wasn't at all what I expected, I didn't enjoy the writing, and the story was boring. I felt like nothing at all happened. I got 30% in then skimmed to 50% and still nothing was happening. I think the idea of the MC not being "Belle" was interesting but because she was bewitched herself, she was only able to observe everything that was happening which I found extremely boring.

DNF 50%

This book is one of my biggest disappointments of this year. I was beyond excited to read it because I adore retellings and I'm always on the hunt for one of them, and the premise of this novel sounded amazing and so unique, but I ended up hating the book.

One of my main issues with the novel was the writing. I don't usually pay much attention to the writing style when I read a book, unless it's either very good or the opposite. In this case, I wasn't the biggest fan. I didn't clicked with it. I didn't like how the interactions between the characters were done or the descriptions of places.

The characters were so plain, lineal and had barely any development. I disliked the most of them, and as I kept reading I distanced myself from them and the whole story till the point I didn't care about what happened to them. The protagonist was especially annoying and dumb.

The story itself was quite anticlimactic. The beginning wasn't bad, but there came a part where nothing was happening, and I was so bored. There wasn't any important information provided to us until the last 20% of the novel, and frankly, when I reach that point I didn't particular care about any of those big revelations.

I had such high hopes, but overall I found more things that I didn't like that the ones I did, so sadly I had to give this book 1.25 stars.

The Good
I wanted to like this book. A “Beauty and the Beast” retelling? Count me in. “Beauty and the Beast” is my all-time favorite plot cliche. And this book promised not only to be a retelling, but a twist on the old story, with a love triangle that (dare I say it?) sounded interesting and enough to complicate the story significantly. All that is to say, the premise of this story is amazing.

The Bad
The execution, however, is where it falls completely flat. First of all, there’s an extended rape scene. So huge trigger warning there. I found it very cringey and not really relevant to the whole story the way it was done. I don’t think that we shouldn’t write about rape, but I think that we should think critically about how and why we’re doing it and what happens to our characters next. I just didn’t feel like it was handled well.

Then the story just drags on and on but I never felt invested in any of the characters. I could see everything happening and I knew enough of “Beauty and the Beast” to understand where the story was going to go, even with the new love triangle element. And even that wasn’t handled well, because honestly everything hinges on the love triangle in a way that’s supposed to be a shocker but isn’t at all.

Oh, and the major backstory and mystery surrounding the beast are all explained by a character that we only meet briefly through paragraphs and paragraphs of dialogue. Lucie doesn’t even figure it out on her own. Someone else has to tell her. Again, this just feels sloppy. I think the outline for this novel was probably great, but then the ball got dropped when it was actually written out.

On another note, I’ve seen several reviews saying that this book glorifies a rapist and abuser, and I wouldn’t go quite that far. Plot-wise, there is definitely a strong argument to be made that the person glorified is not a rapist. However, I also see why people are saying this and again think that this problem is due in large part to execution.

The Verdict
I do not recommend. I almost one-starred this, except that I like the idea so much that I bumped it up. That said, I still don’t recommend the actual book. Just let your imagination play with the idea instead.

I am a fan of fairytale retelling and I did like many things about this book. I liked the ending in which beast was the truly beautiful person in the story. And, while I understand why the author needed a horrifying incident to happen to our heroine, the circumstances of her need for revenge make it difficult to suggest this book to teen readers.

I really enjoyed this retelling of Beauty and the Beast! It's one of my favorite Disney movies, mostly because of Belle (Go books!) and I was interested to see how things would play out in this retelling. This was a dark book, probably more like the original then the movie.

The idea that the guy who was transformed in the Beast was both a really, really bad guy and then not the Beast at all, just another person in this different body, was pretty interesting. It's a different take then the guy becoming the beast and learning how to be a better person. So that was very interesting to read about!

I felt bad for Lucie, she's had it tough, being a peasant whose father has died, and basically sent away from home to protect herself from her step-father's wandering eye. But things go from bad to worse because of Jean-Loup. Really hated that guy! But there were some moments once Beast arrived on the scene, were I was like, something bad is going to happen and I don't want to read it!

The actual part with Rose is maybe the last third or so of the book. More important was the things that happened beforehand, like Lucie being a servant, that weird thing with the maybe ghost, and the sorceress lady. But how everything worked out, that was a elegant solution and I loved reading it!

This book was a really fantastic retelling with such a different focus, and I enjoyed reading it so much!

Trigger warning?



I could not finish this book (DNF). I really wanted to love it - I’m all about fairy tales retellings but unfortunately, this one is badly written. Like many other readers, the rape scene shocked me. It was simply in poor taste, the story could have done without it and romanticized sexual abuse. Nope nope nope.

I'm saddened that I didn't enjoy this more, especially since I had been waiting over a year for this book's release. This is a more dark and twisted take on the classic Beauty and the Beast story, which I appreciated. I thought the writing perfectly matched the book's theme.

Unfortunately, the pacing was slow and nothing really seems to be happing plot-wise for a good chunk of the story. The scene with Lucie that happens very early in the book was completely unexpected and I think a warning should be issued for unsuspecting readers. The way Jean-Loup/Beast's storyline evolved was convincing to me, but I could see how it wouldn't be to others and how some readers would take issue with Lucie's eventual relationship with Beast.

It was a lovely take on the classic Beauty and Beast tale. The unexpected twist was an interesting nod. I would love to have a sequel with Rose.

DNF at 41% and was shocked that I wasn't further because it felt like I should have been. I love fairy tale retellings and I wanted to like this one; but, it was poorly written. I was able to continue past the rape scene, which was shocking but should have stopped there. The plot is slow and repetitive once the beast is changed. Additionally, Lucie's character development is off-putting. I didn't like any of the characters and decided not to waste another couple hours of my life.

-- I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley --

Here's what we're not going to do: romanticize a rapist/abuser. This book embodies a lot of the tropes and things I dislike in modern day literature. The writing in itself was fine, I might even say I like the author's writing style. The story, however, was irredeemable for me.

I went into this book thinking it would be a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Perhaps it was, for some, however, the book managed to romanticize a rapist. I LOVE fairytale retellings. LOVE them. Though, I could not finish the book all the way because the storyline just bothered me that much.

Also, if you are sensitive to any of this, if your triggers include mental illness, suicide, and sexual abuse, I would under no circumstance recommend you to read this. That being said, I hope the author manages to include a trigger warning in any future versions. This book was just an all out 'nope' for me. 1/5.

No. No no no no no. I'm going to keep this review pretty short because I could not and did not finish the book and there was nothing I liked about what little I read. It is so problematic.

This book was an immediate DNF for me after a certain scene I'll talk about later, but if it hadn't been for that, I probably would have shelved it as a DNF anyway because of the writing alone. It was so bad. Everything is told, not shown, and Lucie read as a bad fan-fiction heroine. I found myself cringing a couple times from the very first chapter. That's not how you want to be introduced to a book.

As soon as the master of the castle, Jean-Loup, returns, Lucie is instantly infatuated with him. She becomes obsessed and everything she does as a servant is done in a way so she can look at him. Again, it read like a bad fan-fiction. It wasn't written in a way where I could believe Lucie was intrigued by him and maybe even attracted. Everything was done to an extreme so that I was turned off from the story.

But the part that made me go "nope" and close my ebook with as much vigor as I could (there's only so much you can do when you don't have an actual, physical copy to slam shut in anger) was an event that happens maybe 10% into the book, which is as far as I read. I don't really consider it a spoiler since it happens so close to the beginning of the book, so I'm just going to go ahead as say it: Jean-Loup rapes Lucie. It happens with hardly any warning and completely shook me. This whole book was clearly set up to be a romance between Jean-Loup and Lucie, and that is why I stopped reading where I did. There was no way I could read over 300 pages of bad writing about a sexual assault victim falling in love with her rapist. That's just disgusting.

I don't have anything else to say, so I'm going to leave it there. I was definitely disappointed, because when I'd read the description for the book, it sounded like an awesome and unique version of "Beauty and the Beast," but I couldn't get past the bad writing and the problematic material. Hopefully the next ARC I get is better.