User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
This review may contain spoilers.
Beauty is the youngest of three sisters. Their mother has passed on and now they live with their father. Beauty is an introvert and prefers reading books. She has very low self-esteem, dislikes her body, and feels that she doesn’t measure up to her sisters’ attractiveness. While she’s quite clever, she wishes she could also be beautiful and have more to offer like her sisters Hope and Grace who are both beautiful and kind.
After their father loses all the family income, they're forced to move to a new place near a mysterious woods. Ger, Hope's soon-to-be husband, will be a smith there and help to support their family. After some time, news comes regarding one of their father’s lost ships. Their father plans a journey to discover what’s left of it, but there are stories of the woods and Ger has told the tales about how it's unsafe.
‘The story is the woods haunted. No, not haunted: enchanted. The stream flows out of the forest, as you see, so likely it’s enchanted to, if anything is. The first smith — well, tales vary. Perhaps he was a wizard. He was a good smith, but he disappeared one day. He’s the one built the house — said he liked the forest, and a forge needs a stream close by, and most of the town gets its water by well. The next smith — the one that left two years ago — dug the well we’ve got now, to prevent the waters enchanting him; but he didn’t like the noises the forest made after dark. Well, forests do make odd noises after dark. Anyway, he left. And they’ve had some trouble finding someone else. That’s how we got this place so cheaply: It’s very good for what we had to spend.’When their father returns, he brings back a magic rose along with a story to go with it. It is said that he must return one of his daughters to a Beast’s castle or he will meet his death.
I thought the writing in this book was exquisite, in fact, it was the writing that pulled me in. It was just like reading a fairy tale as a child. The story itself stays fairly true to the original with only a few changes so, it’s quite predictable at times, which was fine. It’s rather slow the first half, and the story revolves around Beauty and her family mainly with how they’re getting along in their new place of living. Despite the slowness, I relished these parts because this family truly loves one another and takes care of each other, including the other sisters. They all do their part and beauty may be timid, but she isn’t lacking courage. The Beast isn’t even introduced until roughly half way through the story, which didn’t bother me one bit. I actually preferred the Beast in this book because he’s very generous and kind–offering beautiful clothing, delicious foods, books, and jewelry to Beauty. There isn’t anything he won’t do for her. In addition, he wants to share all of his wealth with her family and sends home thoughtful treasures to them all, most importantly, dreams about Beauty. It’s so heartwarming.
My only issue was the ending which felt rushed and there just wasn’t enough explanation of the enchantment. Was beauty also changed (to look more beautiful like her mother), or was her self-esteem just magically fixed? Why couldn’t she just stay the way she was, because the Beast loved her that way and from the very beginning felt that she was beautiful? I wanted Beauty to gain self-esteem naturally without this instant fix and surely not become remodeled by an enchantment whisking her away from her supposed ‘ugliness.’ It also seemed weird that when Beast changed back to a prince, he was then aged with gray-streaked hair, while Beauty was not. It was unclear what ages they were because Beauty was only in her teens and the Beast would now be in his forties. These things niggled me. Maybe I’m missing something, but I did reread the ending twice and this was a similar situation previously with her mother and father’s marriage. Regardless, it’s still a happy ending and I certainly won’t tear the book apart and rate it low because the ending wasn’t written the way I wanted it to be.
Overall, I loved this retelling all the way to the end. I’m happy to have read it and will be on the lookout for more books by Robin McKinley.
4.5****
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Rating: really liked it
I curse this book with a thousand crotch louse.
It's not I didn't like this book. At least, I like the beginning for awhile. But this book's plot was enough to drive me into a rant.
Getting out of the way the fact that the characterisation is great and the setting is stunning and all that shit, let's get into possibly McKinley's only, and truly great weakness, which is plotting and pacing.
The book reads at the speed of an unhurried snail. It starts a full 2.5ish years before Beauty even meets the Beast and shows no sincere interest in moving things along for the sake of actually telling the story. Beauty spends a stunningly little amount of time with the Beast and when we actually meet him, most of that time is glossed over in narrative telling rather than showing.
ARE YOU TELLING ME I JUST SAT THROUGH 2.5 YEARS OF THIS GIRL'S LIFE ONLY TO HAVE FIVE MINUTES WITH THE ACTUAL GREAT ROMANCE THIS FAIRYTALE IS FAMOUS FOR?!
Then, right, the whole thing is wrapped up in about 20 pages. It was infuriating. I don't feel like Beauty's back story and life before the Beast helped us understand her motivations and character arc any great deal. I felt like it was cumbersome for the sake of being cumbersome and wordy and
artistic.
I'm so mad about this, that I'm practically hopping. I'm hopping mad, I say!
Rating: really liked it
fairy tale retellings are fascinating - i went through a datlow-phase years ago, and i have read many others outside of her collections - it is a comfortable pleasure for me. so, since i am now going on an "introduce myself to the fantasy genre" expedition, this book seemed like the most logical entrée into it all.
beauty and the beast was never one of my favorite fairy tales - i don't know why, particularly, but i usually preferred the ones that didn't have a corresponding disney movie which would unavoidably be playing in the back of my head as i was reading them, not to mention the songs - the dreadful songs...
but i really liked this adaptation.
the best thing about this particular version is that mckinley changes the backstory a little bit in a way that makes it more natural and a much better story overall.
most fairy tales operate by isolating the main character. the heroes and heroines are frequently orphans, or abandoned by their parents/stepparents, friendless and forced to make their own way with the occasional animal or supernatural ally. but in this retelling, beauty comes from a loving family. she and her sisters are close, her father loves her deeply, she has a strong sense of community and duty.
the cinderella type, who stoically goes on sweeping and polishing while everyone around her abuses her and enslaves her while she just keeps turning the other cheek as though she is in a morphine daze - i cannot get behind that kind of character, because they seem less human and more symbolic; they are empty. in the original b and the b - of
course beauty would go to the beast - what's she got to keep her where she is?? some shitty sisters and a weak father? (she does love her father in the original, but the rest of her life is pretty easy to leave behind). but in this version, her decision is made out of love and sacrifice and she is giving up so much, that it makes her sympathetic, but not some doormat like so many others, doing "good" because they have been lobotomized sometime in their past. her decision feels more natural considering her background; the sacrifice is greater than that of someone with nothing to lose. this young woman has learned how to love and how to be nurturing from a support system that includes her family, but also includes her neighbors and everyone she meets along the way, in a natural nice-girl way that is never treacly. and she is no gentle delicate flower, either - this girl is a perfect match for the beast.
without that family-oriented background, it is illogical that she would have learned how to be kind, how to be giving, how to care for the beast enough to bring him back to his true form. (there is no way i am putting a spoiler alert on this review, by the way - DO YOU LIVE IN A HOLE???) i think that mckinley made absolutely the right choice by changing the parts she did, and her prose is beautiful and simple and a real treat to read.
and don't get me started on that library. this is why we need more booknerd heroines in our fairy tales. so books like this can be written.
i think i got muddled somewhere in the middle of all that, but never mind - maybe the brain will make more sense tomorrow...
nope!
and if anyone can tell me the fairy tale collection my grandmother had when i was little, i would be so grateful.
come to my blog!
Rating: really liked it
$1.99 Kindle sale, Nov. 18, 2019. This is a cozy, delightful retelling of
The Beauty and the Beast tale, one of my very favorite fairy tale retellings and comfort reads.
Update: I've just read
Beauty again for the first time in 15 years or more, but I probably read this 5 or 6 times when I was in my 20s, so you are
not getting an unbiased opinion here. But I still adore this book, even though I'm older and more cynical now. It's a fairly simple, straightforward retelling of the fairy tale, with a few relatively minor twists. But the writing is lovely, the characters charming, and McKinley used a very fairy tale-ish style of writing that fits the story well. The ending is a little rushed, but otherwise I have no complaints. I want to be Beauty's bestie and chat books and eat buttered toast with her and help her braid Greatheart's mane.
Beauty keeps all 5 stars. Call it nostalgia, but I'm not even a little bit sorry!
Initial review: Beauty has been for a long time one of my favorite fairy tale novelizations. It's a delightful read, not as long or complex as some of Robin McKinley's later works, but it has sweetness and a heart and has withstood many re-readings. I remain convinced that Disney swiped several details of this book for its "Beauty and the Beast," like the book-loving heroine:
and the servants that seem to have become part of the furniture:
It's been at least 10 or 15 years since I read this and I probably should do a re-read one of these days to see if it's really a 5-star book or if it's just an excess of nostalgia for an old favorite that's driving my high rating. Till then, just don't go into this expecting something really deep or earth-shaking; it's more of a lovely, sweet, gentle comfort read.
Rating: really liked it
This is absolutely my favorite retelling of the familiar tale of Beauty and the Beast.
An aside: it far outshines the Disney one.
McKinley begins the tale with the very familiar setting: A merchant with daughters has fallen on hard times. He and his family are reduced to living in near poverty.
But there she diverges, to give us a believable family structure of the daughters who have various levels of resourcefulness in dealing with their straitened circumstances. They are a family, and there are no cardboard 'evil sisters' in this telling.
I love McKinley's style in all of her books I have read. It is absolutely transparent. I fall into her writing effortlessly, and surface hours later feeling as if I have experienced a life rather than read a story.
Rating: really liked it
Q:
Our literal-minded mother named us Grace, Hope, and Honour, but few people except I perhaps the minister who had baptized all three of us remembered my given name. (c)
Q:
Hope named her Mercy, after our sister who had died, although I privately thought that our family already had more than enough virtues personified. (c)
Q:
My intellectual abilities gave me a release, and an excuse. I shunned company because I preferred books; and the dreams I confided to my father were of becoming a scholar in good earnest, and going to University. (c)
Q:
I was frightened of the unknown that we faced, and of our ignorance; but I had never been afraid of hard work, I had no beauty to lose, nor would there be any wrench at parting from high society, I didn’t relish the thought of sleeping in an attic and washing my own clothes, but then it didn’t fill me with horror either, and I was still young enough to see it in the light of an adventure. (c)
Q:
When spring came I dug up the garden and planted it, and weeded it, and prayed over it, and fidgeted; and almost three years of lying fallow had agreed with it, because it produced radishes the size of onions, potatoes the size of melons, and melons the size of small sheep. The herb border ran wild, and the air smelled wonderful; the breezes often stirred the piney, mossy smell of the forest with the sharp smell of herbs, mixed in the warm smell of fresh bread from the kitchen, and then flung the result over the meadow like a handful of new gold coins. (c)
Q:
I sat on my bed and looked out at the quiet woods, black and silver in snow and moonlight, and serene. There was nothing watchful or brooding about that stillness; whatever secrets were hidden in that forest were so perfectly kept that their existence could not be suspected nor even imagined by any rational faculty. (c)
Q:
... the sun filled the castle and its gardens with gold, like nectar in a crystal goblet; the roses gleamed like facets. (c)
Q:
Such a beautiful fairy tale retelling! Love the emotional stuff, how close-knit the family is. A great character dev and setting: a well-off family gets into a hardship and needs to change their way of life, move to a cheaper place in distant lands and build a new way of living. With magic and enchantments being hidden right next to them.
Great descriptions, pacing, lovely characters. Wow! A new fav of mine.
Rating: really liked it
I try hard not to use spoilers in these reviews but find that is impossible in this case. But, since it’s a tale as old as time, maybe you’ll forgive me for it just this once.
I did not like the book.
Wow, that’s hard to say. I love stories, love books – the way the pages feel under my fingers. I like stories that make me care about the characters, that drop me into the action. Hand me an Avery Cates novel and I am oblivious to the roar of NASCAR engines on the big screen TV, to the dinner burning in the oven, and even to someone speaking directly to me. (My sons can attest to this.) For me to admit I didn’t care for a story is an extremely rare occurrence. The last time it happened was with Angelology and I don’t like the feeling.
Here is the summary:
Sixteen-year-old Beauty has never liked her nickname. Thin, awkward, and undersized, with big hands and huge feet, she has always thought of herself as the plainest girl in her family – certainly not nearly as lovely as her elder sisters, Hope and Grace. But what she lacks in looks, she makes up for in courage. When her father comes home one day with the strange tale of an enchanted castle in the wood and the terrible promise he has made to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows what she must do. She must go to the castle and tame the Beast – if such a thing is possible.
Here is the unusual love story of a most unlikely couple: Beauty and the Beast.
Books are my life, and words are my business, so how indeed can it be possible for me to not like a story? I’ve thought about that and here’s what I’ve come up with. I am not a fan of most classic lit. I have yet to finish a single Jane Austen novel because they bore me to tears. I didn’t like Lord of the Rings because it moved too slowly. Based on the back cover summary, there should be plenty of action to keep me interested. But there wasn’t.
BEAUTY is a short book but it’s divided into three parts, two of which I found unnecessary. I inserted book marks at each Part’s beginning and closed the book. Eye-balling my bookmarks, I see that Part 3 starts about mid-book. This is where I would have begun the story. Instead, McKinley devotes Part 1 to character history, introducing us to Beauty, whose real name is Honour, and her two older sisters, Hope and Grace. Despite the entire first Part dedicated to introductions, I could not keep straight who was Hope and who was Grace, which is important because one of them is in love with a sailor later lost at sea and the other, with an iron worker named Gervain. I never forged any connections to these characters to care how the story developed. We’re told Beauty is unfortunately named and that she is the clever and courageous one. Much of these first fifty pages is devoted to describing how clever Beauty is, which set my expectations that her cleverness might somehow aid her eventual fate to tame the Beast.
A reversal of the family’s fortune forces them out of their home and into the wood, where Gervain has located a blacksmith forge suitable for the entire lot should Beauty’s sister Hope ( I think) accept his marriage proposal. It’s a hard life, but the girls all adjust and Hope is happy in her marriage. Meanwhile, news of the ship lost at sea arrives and Beauty’s father returns to their former home to learn what became of his men. The months pass and when her father returns, he arrives with a rose and a very strange tale of an enchanted castle in the woods owned by a horrible beast who has forced him into even more horrible promise.
Part 2 picks up with Father relating both tale and promise. For stealing one of the Beast’s roses, Father must hand over Beauty. Beauty must agree to the plan of her own free will because she loves her father enough to want to save his life… and be courageous enough to bear the separation. I figured these conditions must have something to do with the enchantment that made Beast a beast, but … I was left hanging here.
There is a debate, but in the end, Beauty insists upon going to fulfill her father’s promise. Here is some proof of the courage I’d expected her to display but I expected… more.
Finally, Part 3 is where the traditional story begins. Beauty meets the Beast and adjusts to life in the enchanted castle. For someone whose cleverness is so lauded throughout Parts 1 and 2, I expected Beauty’s curiosity to answer the questions I had – how did the Beast come to be a beast? Why force such horrid promises from a stranger? What was her role in his world, aside from his admission he is looking for a wife? But she is strangely docile, even polite to her captor and an uneasy and unlikely friendship too quickly forms between them as Beauty attempts to make the best of her situation, even growing happy to some extent.
I find this hard to believe.
As time passes, Beauty realizes she can hear some of the invisible servants hovering around her. Cleverness is again exhibited; Beauty does not acknowledge her ability to hear them. But again, I was disappointed that this ploy failed to yield any useful information about the secrets the Beast is keeping.
Then, poof! We hit the climax where Beauty is permitted home to inform her sister that the sailor feared lost at sea is returning for her. Miraculously, she discovers she is in love with the Beast, fights to find her way back to tell him so, though I was never sure why and the enchantment is lifted.
So, I felt let down. I had expectations and they were not met. Is Beauty clever? Then why did she never figure out the man in the portraits all over the castle were the Beast himself? Is Beauty courageous? Then why did she never defy the Beast? Never test the limits of his patience, push the boundaries of the enchantment that surrounded them? Like Chekov’s Gun, these traits were stated repeatedly from the opening scene, hanging over the mantle and never fired.
Read BEAUTY for yourselves. See if you agree with me. If you don’t, I hope you’ll tell me what I missed.
Rating: really liked it
An absolutely lovely rendition of my favorite fairy tale,
Beauty and the Beast. There have been many retellings of this tale, from the bodice ripping romance novel covers featuring men muscled to the point of beastliness, holding pale, innocent flowers, to, of course, the smart young lady with a conveinently lovely voice for a Disney musical. This one falls somewhere poignantly in between- in just the perfect place for adult fans of both genres to find something that they can identify with, while still appealing to the age group that this book is most directly useful to, the pre-teen and teenager demographic.
When I say this, I don't mean to demean the novel in any way, I am just speaking from my own experience. Had I discovered this novel as a 13 year old, I'm sure I would have read it ragged to shreds, over and over again. As it is, there are still places where this tale truly gets to me, places where I had to pause and start all over again, it aroused such strong memories of points in my younger life.
The images of transformation were my favorite parts of this novel- they are the turning points that move the plot along. It is a quietly told tale, told mostly in a calmly adult voice (just as one would expect from a fireside fairy tale), but the points where that voice breaks are the most touchingly, heartbreakingly lovely in the piece. That break always happened at these poignant moments where transformation glittered all about young Beauty and/or her family. And her response to each of these moments is what made this tale so amazingly human- her utter refusal to accept who she was and who she became. The scene of the silver princess dress really did get to me. That symbol was perhaps the most effective one that they could have chosen. McKinley did such a wonderful job of presenting the idea that people never change until they are ready to, even if it is a positive change, even if it is necessary for their lives... because leaving behind your identity is the scariest thing of all. Living in an enchanted castle, far away from the effects of the world, enforced or not, is the closest that our practical heroine can come to Sleeping Beauty's hundred years of sleep. I found myself in perfect sympathy with McKinley's heroine, and I felt her journey of growth was perfectly organic, one thing given time to develop into another, something helped by the often distant, traditional fairy tale telling to most of the piece. It made the moments of her change into the woman she didn't believe in all the more lovely.
We all have moments where we want to duck our faces in the ground, and play the ostrich for as long as possible. It is always lovely to read books that remind us what we'd be willfully missing if we gave into that urge for too long.
I do wish that McKinley had let us spend a little more time with Beauty at the end of her journey- I'd like to see that she doesn't quite entirely smoothly adapt, to see what remains of her changes, and most importantly, that she still retains her
self inside that silver gown.
Rating: really liked it
One of my favorite retellings of Beauty and the Beast. The family is loving and the prose beyond witty. If you love the Disney version, it owes a lot to this book.
Rating: really liked it
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The great thing about a fantasy is that some of it is timeless. That is totally the case with Beauty. It was originally published in 1978
shhhh but when you pick it up it is really
a tale as old as time but it can be told throughout these decades seamlessly. It could as easily been published last month and because it is fantasy you’d never know.
Why I liked this Re-Telling:It’s a classic beauty and the beast retelling the one I remember from my own childhood with an enchanted castle, the rose, the curse.
Ger strode forwards and caught him in his arms as he staggered, and then half carried him to a seat near the fire. As he sank down with a sigh we all noticed that in his hand he held a rose: a great scarlet rose, bigger than any we had seen before, in full and perfect bloom. “Here, Beauty,” he said to me, and held it out. I took it, my hand trembling a little, and stood gazing at it. I had never seen such a lovely thing.
I also saw where Disney might have got some of there ideas from. There are mysterious voices and servants in the castle that are invisible and always trying to ‘help’ Beauty with getting dressed and dancing a parade of food in front of her at meal times to chose from.
The Castle itself is amazing with rooms that move and melodious giggling winds that try to direct you around the place. As soon as you start to feel lost just go around the corner and your room will be there.
The Beast was sweet and charming and my heart broke for him as he tried to get close to a reluctant beauty. He has been lonely for so long and it really showed through in the story.
“You fainted,” he said; his voice was a rough whisper. “I caught you before you reached the floor. You—you might have hurt yourself. I only wanted to lay you down somewhere that you could be comfortable.” I stared at him, still kneeling, with my fingernails biting into the sofa cushions. I couldn’t look away from him, but I did not recognize what I saw. “You—you clung to me,” he said, and there was a vast depth of pleading in his voice.
This is a perfect story for MG and YA readers for an introduction to fantasy writing as well as great for older readers that want to feel transported back to their younger selves.
DownfallsIf you are a semi-book snob like me you’d miss this book because it is ‘too old’. But I challenge everyone to get past that way of thinking at least in the fantasy genre.
It takes a little time to pick up. The beginning was slightly slow for me especially as they are traveling out of the city to their new lives in the country. I sometimes get really board during traveling….just me. But once they are settled in the country and all the tales of the magical enchanted wood start cropping up I was totally hooked.
“It’s said there’s a castle in a wild garden at the center of these woods; and if you ever walk into the trees till you are out of sight of the edge of the forest and you can see nothing but big dark trees all around you, you will be drawn to that castle; and in the castle there lives a monster. He was a man once, some tales say, and was turned into a terrible monster as a punishment for his evil deeds; some say he was born that way, as a punishment to his parents, who were king and queen of a good land but cared only for their own pleasure.”
OverallThis is a beautiful retelling of a classic story with great imagery, a strong heroine and fantastic language in the telling. Totally worth a read.
Rating: really liked it
If you love Beauty and the Beast retellings that stay true to the original story, read this book!
Rating: really liked it
This is a lovely retelling of
Beauty and the Beast. Robin McKinley's writing is fluid; the descriptions of the castle, landscapes, and even clothes are clear and vivid; horseback-riding scenes and interactions with horses are reflective of the author's superior knowledge of the animals. But other than that, there is hardly anything memorable about Beauty.
I don't know about you, but expect any retelling to bring something new to the original story, some new layers, better understanding of the characters, more intricate backgrounds. Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest is a great example of a retelling done right. McKinley's Beauty doesn't bring anything fresh to the table except maybe that Beauty is not particularly beautiful in the beginning.
My other problem with the book is that Beauty's world before her arrival to the Beast's castle is very vaguely defined. It's hard to even envision in what time her story is placed - 16th, 17th, 18th century?
And finally, the ending of the book is anti-climactic to say the least. Everything happens so fast - the Beast's transformation, love confessions, introduction of the Beast's story, Beauty's sudden realization of her... well beauty, the wedding. All of it is just crammed in the last 2-3 pages. Disappointing and unsatisfying.
Many of these negatives, however, can be forgiven if you keep in mind that this book is Robin McKinley's debut. And the writing is lovely.
Rating: really liked it
I can't believe I haven't reviewed this properly before! This book was so influential in the writing of my fairy tales! It has been so influential my writing in general! This book is the forerunner, and set the standard, for modern YA fairy tale retellings. And since the last time I read it I've seen Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast roughly 9,000 times with my daughter, and I have to say: if they didn't pay McKinley for her ideas, Disney owes her big time!
Rating: really liked it
I read this book for my hometown's Young Women's Book Club. The lady that selected this book, chose it so we could read it and then go to the new Beauty and the Best movie that is coming out. Even though the movie isn't based off this retelling, we thought it would be fun.
I really enjoyed this retelling. It was a super easy, fast read. It was definitely entertaining and different enough without being totally off-track with the story. The introduction and background information started to get a little long and that would have been my only suggestion to the book. For 45% of the book, we still hadn't met the Beast.
Book Summary:
Beauty's real name is Honour, but she didn't like that name so her family called her Beauty. When she was a little older she felt weird having that name, because she believed it didn't fit her. She was thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones.
When her father comes home and shares his terrible experience making a promise with an enchanted castle in the forest and huge, scary Beast, Beauty knows she must go to the castle. And there is where she finds "Happily Ever After."
I suggest this book to anyone that likes to read retellings of Fairy Tales.
Rating: really liked it
This is a quick read - young adult fiction. There were elements of this story (a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast) that had the potential to be really cool, but the author concentrated on the clothes and hair and food instead of the magic. I'm all for detail, but come on! The main character was labeled "plain" from the beginning and her sisters were beautiful. Of course in the end the plain one becomes pretty and the Beast is also pretty and TA DA all is right with the world. Booo. Also, many many holes in the world the author created. You know they're big if I notice them.
