A fun twist on a familiar tale.
Arabella, a proud young woman with grand ambitions, is considered "beastly" because she is not the sweet and compliant girl her parents want.
After expressing her anger, Arabella and everyone she cares about are cursed, trapped in the castle for 100 years.
Can a handsome thief who wanders in the castle learn to love this "unloveable" girl and break the curse? Or is he so wounded by his experience with love that he cannot open his heart again?
Recommend to readers who enjoy a good re-telling!

A gender-swapped rendition of Beauty and the Beast, Beastly Beauty is a fun novel that I felt unfortunately fell flat in its execution.

While the prose, pacing and characters were all very intriguing, I found myself bored with the character's motivations and actions. I liked the idea of exploring beastliness without an actual monster as a love interest, but this also felt somewhat contrived.

I really wanted to like this book, but found myself wishing it were sooner rather than later.

It is marketed as a YA, and perhaps I am simply just not the target audience. 3/5 stars

Gender swapped retelling of Beauty and the beast…I’m in! I adore retellings, especially the dark fantasy/romance types! The magic and the power behind this once is a lot more subtle but I still found it extremely satisfying.

The world building was fantastic, I felt completely absorbed within this world. The characters whether they were the main or side characters, all felt important and not like an afterthought. The “lost” castle was very much like it should be, isolated, cold, and creepy but of chose we wouldn’t have a beauty and beast story without the library!

I highly enjoyed this book and the characters 🖤

My thoughts on this book were definitely a split decision. Overall, I felt this was a good read. The author offered an intriguing take on this fairytale that was inspired and fresh. That being said, I sadly felt that the story never reached the potential It had shown. Truly the worst thing for me was the romance. It is what I love and what I read for. I really didn't feel any chemistry between these two and I didn't feel any real connection to Beau and Arabella. Sure, I could sympathize with them in general but that was all.

Gosh, I really struggled with this one. I had the hardest time getting into the groove with it. The story just seemed to drag on and I honestly did not like the main characters and their “relationship.” I needed some extra backstories that were not there and then at other times the story just seemed to drag on.

One thing I did like was the portrayal of the human emotions within the characters. But, unfortunately, that was about all I did enjoy with this twist of Beauty and the Beast.

At first this story was hard to get into, but not to give any spoilers, I would love to see it on the big screen. The beast twist on the Beauty and the Beast story was a refreshing one to read. Beau was a cutie too. It's all about love and how to live in return but what kind of love? I'm not going tell you. You have to read it yourself.

I wanted to love this book and was so excited when I was given the opportunity to read it. The idea of a beast and belle swap was intriguing, but unfortunately the book came up short for me. There were brilliant points, but others were confusing and I struggled to get through it.

This was a really unusual and intriguing story that took a classic fairytale and gave it its own updated twist. The characters were well written and sympathetic. In this version, the “beast” was a young girl, raised in privilege as the daughter of a nobleman. Of course as in the fairy tale, she must find love or all in the castle will be forever frozen there. The beauty, meanwhile, is a young man who happens to be a thief.

I enjoyed this story and look forward to reading other tales by the author. 4 stars out of five.

Jennifer Donnelly has done it again! I love her dark spins on fairy tale stories! Such a page turner! My students gave it a thumbs up!

This retelling of a classic tale is magical. It flips the original Beauty and the Beast trope on its head and the gender swap makes for a truly intriguing story.

For fans of any fairy tale revisions, this is one I recommend.

I always love a fairy tail retelling. Especially beauty and the beast.

I loved that this was gender swapped and not quite what you’d typically expect. It was a little confusing at first, but overall I enjoyed it and would read more by this author.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scholastic for providing me with an eARC of Beastly Beauty in exchange for my honest review!

I'm always in the mood for a fairy tale retelling, and we get an enjoyable one here in the form of Beastly Beauty, which draws gender-swapped inspiration from Beauty and the Beast. I've seen all the cliches in this subgenre by now, so I'm not really surprised by a lot of what this book deploys. But that doesn't stop it from enthralling me right from the start and getting me invested in the characters and the romance that gradually builds up between Beau and Arabella. It does offer some subversive writing, though, via its new incarnation of the classic curse from Beauty and the Beast, and I definitely admire that. Sure, there are points where I feel like this aspect of the narrative could have been fleshed out more deeply in order to explain things better. The rushed climax stands out as a nitpick, too. But still, the book's intriguing interpretation of the curse effectively enhances the general tale as it navigates the importance of taking care of your own heart, being fully connected with your emotions, and maintaining optimism in the face of despair.

Overall, I'm officially rating Beastly Beauty 3.75 out of 5 stars, which I'm rounding up to 4 stars. Now that I've had a good time with this book, I'm interested in checking out more of Jennifer Donnelly's work down the line.

Jennifer Donnelly's 'Beastly Beauty' reimagines the classic 'Beauty and the Beast' tale with a gender-reversed twist, introducing readers to Beau, a thief driven by love for his brother and a desire for redemption. As Beau stumbles upon a mysterious castle filled with secrets, he forms an unlikely alliance with Arabella, the enigmatic inhabitant, leading to a journey of self-discovery and unexpected romance.

Donnelly's skillful storytelling and compelling characters make this a captivating read, blending mystery, romance, and themes of self-acceptance seamlessly. With its rich symbolism and poignant narrative, 'Beastly Beauty' is sure to enchant fans of dark fairy tale retellings and leave them eagerly anticipating Donnelly's next midnight tale.

3.5 stars rounded up because I have a soft spot for Beauty and the Beast.

I love Beauty and the Beast and I've read a number of retellings and adaptations, but this was a version unlike any I've read before. First, there is a gender swap and "Beauty" is Beau, a handsome rogue and a thief, forced into his life of crime by many circumstances not completely in his control. "Beast" is Arabella, a duke's daughter and one who has been cursed to become the beast at night. This story definitely fell into the category of "dark" as Bella was surrounded by these creepy court women with strange names (you'll find out what their names mean later in the book). I believe that Beau was a sympathetic character from the start, partly because you learn fairly early on why he is such a good thief, and what drives him. Bella was portrayed as cold at the beginning, but as the story unfolds, you start to learn why she is the way she is. What was very different about this version from previous versions that I've read was what/who turned out to be the source of the curse. The story was honestly confusing at first, because there were jumps in time and the changing point of view left me wondering what was going on. I don't want to say more because it might spoil the story for people. But it took me more than half the book to start figuring things out. Despite the confusion, I ended up really liking this story and I appreciated the psychological complexities the author wove into the book.

If you are a fan of the author or of Beauty and the Beast, you should give this version a try. It was a bit more of a gothic mystery than it was your typical fairytale and I definitely enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on. The author has written another Beauty and the Beast retelling geared towards middle school children, and this makes me want to check that out for what should be a very different tale.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was given this book by the publisher in return for an honest review.

Here we have a twist on the Beauty and the Beast retelling. Our male MC is the beauty and the female MC is our beast (but only after midnight). Though our Beast were not cursed for the same reasons.

We have an interesting mostly human court (some were cursed but not in the traditional tale way). Even more interesting is the Queen's Court. I found their names to be genius. You'll figure it out too when you read it.

Our MC Beau a thief gets himself trapped in a cursed castle after barley escaping capture from his previous escapades with a team who abandons him after the drawbridge crumbles while they make their getaway.

Sadly the castle is at the end of its curse life cycle and our Bell (Beau) is completely unaware. No one knows how they were drawn into the castle and there's a lot of mistrust.

Can a thief save a Kingdom? You'll have to read to find out if this is a happily ever after or not!

4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Beau, a thief, finds himself trapped in a castle that he and his gang find themselves in after trying to escape a heist. Beau quickly learns that the castle is haunted every night by a beast.

This was an interesting re-telling of Beauty and the Beast but was a little confusing at first. I wish that we had learned about the curse earlier in the novel (rather than at 70%) and I think the suspense and story could have still developed in many of the ways it did. I thought Despair's court was a unique take on the emotions Arabella was trapped by, but did not feel like their names needed to be anagrams - just call them what they were. Overall, I thought it was engaging, but I just felt the sequencing was a little off.

A cute gender swap of beauty and the beast. The ladies of the court were a little on the nose at times but I really enjoyed the resolution. I felt the dialogue style was a little inconsistent between older style and modern but the story was pretty interesting. Thank you Scholastic and NetGalley for the eArc in exchange for my honest review.

I am a sucker for a fairytale retelling, and with the roles being reversed it was very intriguing. However it didn’t feel like quite like a beauty and beast retelling as she wasn’t really a beast, and I didn’t really see where the beast part was. The story and writing was very well written and beside that I did somewhat enjoy the read.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic Press for a digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

I am a huge fan of fairytale retellings, so this immediately caught my eye. It took me a while to get into, but the simple fact that it was a complete reimagining of Beauty and the Beast kept me reading. I am glad that I did, although there were moments where I was completely confused.

The beginning of the story focuses on Beau and the band of theives that he runs with. Beau, of course, is the Belle in this retelling, but he has a lot of baggage of his own. When the thieves enter what turns out to be a haunted castle, Beau winds up trapped inside as everyone else gets away. He is desperate to get out to try and save his younger brother who is sick and at a convent somewhere. As a thief, he figures there is always some manner of escape, just find the right key, find the hidden door or tunnel, he can make it work. But that is before he realizes just how mysterious this castle is.

The lady of the house is Arabella. She is surrounded by the strangest ladies maids with truly bizarre names. They are hateful and cruel and yet Arabella doesn't seem to notice and/or mind. The house staff are more normal, but undeniably secretive. Beau starts to pick apart pieces to understand some of what is going on, especially after coming in contact with a magic mirror that shows Arabella's past. The key takeaway is that she was a headstrong and intelligent young girl, brilliant when it came to buiding things. But she lived in a time when those traits were considered undesirable and she needed to be the perfect female specimen and marry the right man. Something happened and she has now been cursed to this castle for 100 years, which of course is coming close to its end.

The biggest differences between this story and the traditional Beauty and the Beast are that 1) she is not always in beast form 2) the things that made her "beastly" were things that in modern society are more mysogynistic ideas towards women and 3) the person who cursed her. The story dragged for a long time and then picked up as Beau and Lady Arabella actually interacted with each other. Interesting premise, just didn't sing for me.

Thank you so for this opportunity to read it, but unfortunately, I had to DNF it was not the best with its writing style and not really explaining the story in the beginning on how she became I thought that Mafi would’ve been the first chapter and it was not in the characters just seeing boring.