Sunday, January 8, 2012

Review: Beastly by Alex Flinn

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Title: Beastly
Author: Alex Flinn

Read copy: eBook
Published: January 27, 2009
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 0061830275
ISBN-13: 9780061830273

I am a beast.

A beast. Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog but a horrible new creature who walks upright—a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. I am a monster.

You think I'm talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It's no deformity, no disease. And I'll stay this way forever—ruined—unless I can break the spell.

Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I'll tell you. I'll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and the perfect life. And then, I'll tell you how I became perfectly...beastly.

My rating:

For someone who doesn't particularly like YA books and doesn't particularly like first-person narrative (if it isn't the Fever series, of course), this story pleasantly surprised me.

Not in a OMG-I'll-read-only-YA-from-now-on way and not even OMG-what-a-wonderful-story-more-stories-should-be-like-this kind of way (the kidnapping angle ruined that for me).
But if you do look at this 'modern Beauty and the Beast retelling from a straight fairy-tale point of view, it works. If you look at it from a normal 21st century point of view, it doesn't. Especially not since it's a YA book. You usually find kidnapping-is-an-aphrodisiac themes in those pesky Harlequin and Silhouette novels.

Still, it was a nice little read, if you forget the major plot element.

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