This was definitely a different take on beauty and the beast. Beau is a thief. He finds himself indebted to a group of bandits while he’s trying to get back to his sick brother. He gets trapped in a creepy old castle. He desperately tries to find a way out, but is thwarted by a variety of circumstances and magic.

I liked the mystery of this story and the author did a great job of building the suspense. I enjoyed the different relationships of the characters in the castle and the bonds he eventually made with them. However, it moved a little slowly at times and I was anxious to see what would become of them all.

Jennifer Donnelly's retellings are incredible! her mind for crafting unique and brilliant versions of classic tales is absolutely unparalleled. I loved this gender-reversed Beauty and the Beast tale! Although it read a bit younger than a typical YA, novel, I still liked the story and think it's interesting for readers of all ages!

This is going to be a long review full of spoilers so you’ve been warned :)

I really wanted to like this book, I really did. And given the raving reviews for this book, I know I’m in the minority, but there were several things in particular that bothered me.

First off, I had a hard time figuring out who this book was supposed to be marketed for. The age of the main characters (Beau and Arabella) and language used** would suggest Young Adult, but the writing style is very much styled more towards Middle Grade.

**I have absolutely no problem with cursing in books lol. I mention it here simply because you’re more likely to find it in YA than MG.

The writing style leads to my next point. This book has one of the worst cases of Instalove I’ve ever see. Beau spends a few days inside Arabella’s castle trying to escape. That’s all he does in those few days. The only people he really spends time with are the servants. So, other than thinking that Arabella is pretty, why does he immediately think he’s in love with her the moment he spends more than two minutes in her company?? It would’ve been more believable had that happened after their cute little date night, but it doesn’t. They both think they love the other one before that. Without knowing anything about each other or having spent any real time together.

The whole point of everyone trying to find someone Arabella could love, of course, is to break the curse. The problem I have with how the curse is handled it ties into this being a genderbent retelling. I love the idea of a genderbent Beauty and the Beast, but i don’t feel it was handled as well as it could have been due to the nature of the curse and just the plot elements themselves.

The reason the curse is enacted is because Arabella has “attempted to suppress her emotions” (according to the summary). Arabella’s emotions, in the book, are nowhere near as explosive as the summary provided makes it seem. She wants to be an architect but is forced to marry rich instead. Ok….so? Other than the exact moment the curse is put in effect, what makes Arabella different from any other fictional character who’s faced the same predicament?? Instead of getting flashbacks to Arabella’s life (which are few and far between), it would’ve been better to follow more of her life pre-curse to show how much she was suffering. The majority of the book is told from Beau’s POV (with disjointed switches to Arabella’s and a servant’s POVs at random times) which really pulls the reader away from feeling anything for Arabella’s situation.

I also didn’t care for Beau being the one to realize that the curse couldn’t be broken until Arabella learned to love herself. When you change the nature of the curse from learning to love others to learning to love yourself, the book should’ve had more from Arabella’s POV simply because the change is now occurring within her. That makes it more introspective so to give most of the POV to Beau is really a disservice to the idea of changing the genders in the first place. You change the genders and make it more emotional, put more emphasis on Arabella in the book summary….and yet we spend a majority of the book with the male character.

And then the final confrontation between Arabella and her emotions is over super quick because it is literally ten minutes to midnight on the last day of the curse. So Beau tells her the way to beat the curse is to learn to love herself and she does…all in ten minutes.

I did love the idea of turning Arabella’s emotions into actual people but the reveal to the reader is a letdown because of how quickly it’s told to readers. Beau doesn’t believe these women he’s met are emotions come to life and the scene moves on. I feel like more could’ve been done with that—and the final confrontation—when the whole point of the curse is that Arabella doesn’t know how to regulate or control her emotions.

It’s also never truly explained just why Arabella herself caused the curse to happen. There’s no other magic in this book so how did she do that? There were other random things never explained in this book too—so her dad commissions a giant clock built in their castle. Why is Death the clockmaker?? The village surrounding their castle has fallen into ruin but when the curse is reversed and everyone brought back to life, you’re telling me no one from the village ever questions where Arabella and her people came from??

So yeah, this book could’ve been a lot better but I feel like it was relying too much on people’s knowledge of the original fairy tale to really go into the emotions it needed to make it something that would stand out.

Jennifer Donnelly is an auto buy. I always enjoy her books and my students love them. So getting the chance to read this beauty and the beast twist was exciting. Beastly Beauty is what you are hoping it will be with some twists and turns. It was fun and beautifully written. The characters weren't exactly what I expected them to be but maybe that also was part of the draw.

Thank you NetGalley for an arc of Beastly Beauty by Jennifer Donnelly

I will read anything that Jennifer Donnelly writes. She is a boss! Beastly Beauty swaps the traditional gender roles of Beauty and the Beast. Donnelly did a fantastic job of recreating this story to reflect the human soul and the ideas that people want to “suck out all the marrow of life” (Thoreau, 1854) and want to be more honest versions of themselves. Yes, there is romance and a curse, but the story has more depth than that—I would argue that the story’s purpose is to encourage self-love. I don’t want to give anything away, but if you are a fan of fairy tale retellings, romance, and redemption stories, this is for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic for the ARC! This was a beautiful retelling!

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release. I was genuinely impressed by how much I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I've many a retellings of Beauty & the Beast, but this gender-twisted version was SO unique, which I really appreciated reading. It didn't feel like it reused any of the same over-worked material, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. A more formal review will be available on my IG/TikTok and Goodreads.

This was an interesting Beauty and the Beast rush against the clock retelling.

I enjoyed Beau’s character and his development from a mere thief to keeper of hearts, savior of matti and castles.

I knew immediately seeing the courts names that they were anagrams for her feelings! I enjoyed trying to solve each lady’s name as it popped up. I do feel that more could have been done with their characters or even been told from their POV.

Death was unexpected and heartbreaking to read. I loved how this character was exposed and explained. The way their presence was detailed in past encounters…. Just *chef’s kiss*.

I have always enjoyed books with riddles so I knew the clockmaker’s riddle was never going to be what it seemed.

There were a few grammatical errors in this book but overall this book spent most of the time focused on character development.
This is my favorite passage from the book:
“Love wasn't for the weak. It took courage to love another human being. It took ferociousness. A baker had told him that. A woman who had lost everything but refused to lose hope.
A woman who was ten times braver than he was. He hadn't heard her words then. He hadn't been ready to. But he was now.“

This one took me awhile to get into it, even with Donnelly's typical gorgeous writing. It is clear to see the slight twists on the classic story of Beauty & the Beast, but it wasn't easy to find much to like about Beau. Being able to see Arabella in a standard, beautiful form before the "midnight curse" also takes away a good bit from the true love element for me.

The secondary characters are where I was particularly left wanting more, but they were just too flat.

Overall: 2 stars (It was fine)

**Thank you to NetGalley & Scholastic, Scholastic Press for the free ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.**

I really enjoyed this retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It's probably one of my favorite retellings of it. I've read another of her books and her writing is really good. I recommend this to anyone who likes fairytale retellings. It also has an underlying meaning of learning to love yourself as you are.
I was lucky enough to get an ARC from Netgalley. These opinions are my own.

When Beau and his fellow thieves try and steal from castle they get caught and Beau gets left behind and trapped on the wrong side of a destroyed bridge. Something is not quite right about the lady of the house and the strange women of her court. I really enjoyed this re-telling and that had I now know that it was a beauty and the beast re-telling it would have taken me a bit to figure that out. The twists and changes while still keeping in the spirit of Beauty and the Beast were well done and I want to go back and read some of the authors other takes on this genre.

Much thanks to Jennifer Donnelly, Scholastic, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

SPOILERS

I'm always up for a Beauty and the Beast retelling. I enjoyed this one and appreciated Donnelly's efforts to make it her own. She worked hard to make it even more metaphorical and relatable than the original tale.

I'm sure it's not the first retelling to focus on self-love rather than romantic love, but it's well-earned in this narrative; also, it rather saved the story, because while Donnelly did her best to develop Beau and Arabella's relationship, it was not done well enough, in my opinion, to believe they could truly love each other so quickly. But as someone who lives with chronic depression and anxiety, Arabella's need to accept herself despite her "faults" was that much more relatable. I've struggled with a bout of lack of interest this winter, so watching Arabella rediscover her love of architecture was supremely gratifying.

Some of the metaphors are clever and some are a bit on the nose. The book takes the expression of holding court with one's emotions very seriously. Some readers may think that it's cheating not to have Arabella in constant beast form, but the physical beast is beside the point, so if a reader's fixated on that aspect, a lot of the book is going to go over their head.

I liked Beau, but I don't understand why he didn't just tell people that he needed to leave because of his sick and possibly dying brother; he kept his brother a secret and I'm not really sure why. He let them think he wanted to leave because he either just didn't like being there or wanted to steal stuff and get away quickly. Which were true, mind, at least initially, but a dying brother might have garnered him more support. It might have seemed insincere while he was a stranger, but as he developed friendships with the stand I wish he'd opened up to them.

As for the end, I liked that Arabella continued to struggle with self-love from time to time; that's realistic. I wish there'd been some kind of explanation as to how the world reacted to the sudden disappearance and reappearance of the castle's inhabitants, who should have been long dead. I realize magic was at play, but still. Also, how did those inhabitants reintegrate with the changes one hundred years would have wrought? It did acknowledge that they couldn't just pick up where they'd left off, that everyone they knew was dead, but my logic would have liked a few more consequences.

Overall, I thought this was a good, thoughtful, and clever retelling---though not good enough to flaunt a "Wish for it" feature on NetGalley. Thaaaat was a bit conceited.

I really enjoyed this gender swapped version of Beauty and the Beast. It is much easier to like and relate to Arabella as the beast because she was cursed due to defying the societal norms, wanting to stand up for the less fortunate that her family ruled over and desiring to be an architect. She was not willing to be a quiet, meek wife with an absolutely awful fiancé. This story also had its own unique bits added to give it a new spin with Arabella's court and the clockwork figurines in the giant gold clock that counted down the remaining time till the curse ended. Beau was also a good character, also not a perfect meek prisoner but a master thief trying to find his way out to save his sick brother.

But the the bit I liked best was that the curse did not depend on Arabella and Beau falling in love with each other but another type of love and acceptance. All in all it made for a good story to read and root for Arabella and Beau finding the answer to the curse and discovering their true selves, independent of what other people think of them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an advance copy of this book to read and review.

I have previously loved reading Jennifer Donnelly, so I immediately requested this book when I saw it. I also absolutely love reading fairytale retellings so this was at the top of my reading list. Unfortunately, this book took quite a while before it took off. I felt like I had gotten about 40% in before the plot finally began. I honestly had a difficult time not putting this aside and not finishing it. Once the story began, I did start to get a feel for where the story was going, but by then I was already losing interest. I didn't mind the gender swapped version of this fairytale, I just wish more of the original story was more prevalent in the first half of the book. In the end I would rate this a 3.5, but in this case I'm rounding down due to the hard time staying with the book rather than not finishing it.

This was a super unique take on Beauty and the Beast but as much as I tried I just couldn't get into it. Arabella and Beau don't have many interactions before Beau falls for her so it does seem a bit out of left field. The only things really mentioned about him are his good looks and him being a thief.

I ended up DNFing at 79% because the pacing and overall style of the book just confused me.

So I am a fan of fairy tale retellings and always have been. I loved Jennifer Donnelly's Stepsister book and so I was hoping this would be as good. And I did enjoy this book. I thought that she did a great job with her more feminist gender swap Beauty and the Beast retelling. I liked both Beau and Arabella and thought they were well developed and I was rooting for them. I didn't like it quite as much as Stepsister, but I still feel it was a solid four out of five.

I got this from Netgalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

I've always loved a good fairy tale retelling. Unfortunately, I thought this one was just okay. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either.

I really wanted to love it. It sounded right up my alley. A gender-reversed Beauty and the Beast? Yes, please!

It just didn't stick the landing for me. I'm not really sure why. The writing's decent. The characters are interesting and strong. I guess I found the story boring at times. The main relationship didn't do much for me either.

I did enjoy how beautiful and magical the tale felt though. I just wish the book had that extra something that really made it sing for me.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was alright. It has a unique twist to the Beauty and the Beast tale which I enjoyed. I think at the beginning since I was so focused on it being a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, I was staying close to the tale, to which I became confused and that confusion lasts for a while so my impression of the book wasn't the greatest at the start.

We start off meeting Beau and he's a great thief, but I don't really get much of his personality from it. It feels like there really isn't much personality to him. Everyone is calling him a thief and he makes snide remarks and all of that, but the general premise of Beau is that he is a thief. That's all that is really to it. So when he starts developing feelings, it just feels like it comes out of nowhere. I find it hard to believe he fell in love with Arabella and visa versa. Their interactions with one another is very limited and when they do interact, it isn't on super great terms. It didn't feel like any friendship was developing. It was just straight to love. What does he come to love of her? I have no idea. It pretty much just seems like seeing the joy radiating off of her when talking about architectural structure, was enough for Beau to come love her. We don't get a perspective on what Arabella sees in Beau, but based on the very simple personality he has, there isn't any special to him. I don't hate Beau. I like his jokey attitude, but I just wish there was more to him. In regards to their interactions, it seems like out of nowhere that Arabella decides to build a bridge for him. She has been cold to him all this time, but then she decides the next day to build a bridge after he demanded it of her? What cause her personality to switch so suddenly?

This whole book was pretty much a mystery to figuring out what the actual curse was and who are these random ladies. It got really annoying not finding it out sooner. By the time it get discovered, I sadly wasn't as interested as I hope. I did want to find out, but it just took too long. At the beginning, the plot was only Beau trying to find a way out to get to his brother, and so the curse didn't seem that important. There were hints here and there, and I hungered for them, but when we're already halfway through the book and all the plot is, is trying to get Beau out, it became boring. Beau rarely tries to figure out what is going on because he's consume in his own goal and that also made me lose hope that we weren't ever going to figure this mystery out until the answer is right there.

However, what I did enjoy were the ladies that represented Arabella's emotions. I thought it was pretty unique and when it was told that their names were just anagrams to the corresponding emotions, I really like that. However, they did seem to appear out of nowhere when we learn how the curse was cast upon Arabella. I'm a bit confuse as to why all of the sudden these emotions became humans and soon a curse was upon Arabella just because she killed her husband? Was it due to the guilt of killing her husband that these emotions took life? Why didn't they take life, sooner? Why exactly do they take life upon her? Does this happen with other people as well? The explanation of how this came to be felt lacking. In addition, why transform her into a beast at midnight? What does that do? There are so many questions in regards to the background of her story and I just felt kinda empty. I thought it would be something more cooler or there was a reasoning to all of this, but there wasn't. It just happened, just because. In regards to Beau's backstory, there wasn't really much. It was short and simple. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was hoping to something more. I just felt like in general for these backstories, it felt rush and there wasn't much care put into them.

Overall, it has a unique twist with the humans emotions to which I like, but that was pretty much it. This story felt lacking and it dragged on the mystery for way too long. There is a lack of explanation to the backstory like it wasn't important, but it is important because it is what caused this book in the first place. The main characters lack a personality and their relationship felt force and out of nowhere. My desire to figure out this mystery and see how it is different from the original tale is what kept me going. This book felt shallow and lack a lot of depth to make me like anything.

"It's not so bad to be foolish. In fact, foolish people are vastly underrated.

Only a foolish person saves a broken-winged bird who will never fly again.

Only a foolish person hands a bunch of daises to an angry old man.

Only a foolish person gives her nice new coat to a beggar girl.

The world doesn't need more clever people. There are plenty of those to go around. You see them everywhere-sidestepping the broken and the lost, sneaking off behind a tree to eat their muffins so they don't have to share them, busily dodging everyone else's pain.

What the world needs is one thing only-more hopelessly foolish people doing shockingly foolish things."

Beastly Beauty by Jennifer Donnelly is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a gender swap twist. Arabella ha been cursed to live as a beast at night in a castle with her horrible courtiers and bunch of servants. One day some one lets down the portcullis and Beau a thief and con man enters and is trapped in the castle.

It took me a little while to get into the story. There were so many characters I had trouble distinguishing who was who until mid way through the book.
I thoroughly enjoyed Beau and Arabella's relationship and their banter. All the lady's made the story intense once I knew who they were.
I'm enjoyed the updates moral of self acceptance at the end of the novel. This book is YA and appropriate for young to mid teens.
I received this arc for free from Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was fun and weird, first of all.

Secondly, it felt more middle grade to me than YA. Except for the swearing, which is really what bumped it to YA, imo.

If you want a Beauty and the Beast retelling that’s unique, this is definitely for you. It may beat you over the head with some of its morals, but it’s got a good core and soul.

If you are averse to a large cast of characters that have very little purpose, this might not be for you. The Ladies of the Court were a really cool addition but it took a little too long for things to be explained and for the curse to be properly dropped, it made it hard to buy into the magic and set up of the book.

I was expecting a lot of things to happen faster, especially at the rate that any given chapter was moving. Every chapter was trying to be a mic drop but when a chapter is a page or two, it loses its gravity.

It’s definitely not like every other Beauty and the Beast retelling, but it’s very aesthetic and knows it. I enjoyed Beau a lot because he had so much going on for a MMC, and I enjoyed architecture as Arabella’s passion. I almost wish the whole book had been from her perspective, especially given how the Ladies could’ve been used.

Anyways, leaving this: Percival and Phillipe are precious and I would die for them and their risotto.

A gender-swapped fairytale retelling disguised as a beautifully written exploration of human emotions and the journey one must undergo to confront them. I loved retellings in high school and this one gave me all the nostalgia while delivering a beautiful message of acceptance, interesting magical elements and the perfect amount of humor to break up the tension. The female rage aspects of this story were also very appreciated and I loved that the writing didn’t paint this as a fault to diminish the character but instead only added to it.

At the beginning, I had a hard time getting drawn in due to slower pacing and the MCs not having much time together to develop the early stages of their relationship. Things picked up at about 45% and progressed very quickly from there so it felt less impactful when they confessed feelings. It would have satiated so much more if their foundation had begun its construction earlier in the story.

I’m so thankful I was able read a digital copy provided by the publisher but there were some formatting issues in my E-arc so I found it difficult to follow change in narratives during some parts. I honestly don’t think it had anything to do with the writing so this this was not at the fault of the author. It definitely impacted my experience reading but this is not reflected in my review, promise 🫶🏻

Thank you so much to Netgalley & Scholastic for this advanced digital copy!