Beauty by Robin McKinley

Beauty 
by Robin McKinley

Read: March 23-26, 2017
Published: June 30, 1993
Genre: Fantasy





Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in looks, she can perhaps make up for in courage.

When her father comes home with the tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must go to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father protests that he will not let her go, but she answers, "Cannot a Beast be tamed?" (Goodreads)



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Why did you read this book?
I had just seen the new live-action Beauty and the Beast and I just needed more. This is one of my favorite fairy tales and I love reading retellings of it, even though I have yet to find one that I love as much as the animated Disney version. The only one that's come close so far is the live-action film.

What did you like about this book?
I liked that Beauty's family wasn't vain and heartless like they are in the original fairy tale. Her sisters were just as kind as Beauty and it was clear they were all close to one another. I think this created more of an emotional impact when Beauty made the decision to take her father's place at the Beast's castle. The reader is able to see exactly what she is giving up to save him. I also like how, instead of having furniture come to life, the servants are merely invisible. It fit the world better than singing candelabras and dancing cutlery would have. The way the book was written also seemed very fitting. It read like a classic fairy tale with much more descriptions than dialogue. I think one  of my favorite things about this book was that the Beast asked Beauty to marry him every night, to which she denied him every night. Not that I like seeing the Beast get shot down night after night, but this is the only retelling I've read so far that's included this part of the original.

What didn't you like about this book?
I really wanted to like this book, especially after I was riding the magical waves of the new movie (which was just fantastic), but I found myself rather bored with it. While I do appreciate it's similarity to the original fairy tale, I found this retelling to be a little to similar to actually be a retelling. There was no twist in the story to make it different, more exciting than the original. The only real differences were that Beauty was actually plain and not as beautiful as her sisters (which is brought up so much it felt like I was reading Twilight), and that her family was nice to her. And one of her sisters had a tragic love story that wasn't all the important to the actual story. As a retelling, I just felt that it fell kind of flat. The story didn't hold any of the magic of any other retelling I've read or the film versions and the characters were just as bland.

Bottom-Line:
I highly doubt that I'll be reading this one again. The only thing that held my interest was the fact that it was Beauty and the Beast.




"I found that the only way I could control this sorrow was not to think of it at all, which was almost as painful as the loss itself." -Beauty by Robin McKinley