Beastly Beauty is a young adult gender-swapped retelling of "Beauty and the Beast," featuring a thief who wanders into a castle in search of food and riches and a young woman who has been trapped there for a hundred years.

Beau and his band of thieves cannot believe their luck when they stumble upon a castle with the gates wide open and food ready on the table. But when a beast appears and they run for their lives, only Beau doesn’t make it across the bridge before it crashes into the moat. When he meets the lady of the house (Arabella), he discovers that the castle is under an enchantment, and he won’t be able to leave. He will need to outsmart Arabella’s court of strange women, build a new bridge across the moat, and help her break the curse if he ever wants to return to Barcelona to help his ailing younger brother.

This "Beauty and the Beast" retelling started strong with Beau and his band of thieves but quickly lost steam. I found the curse overly complicated with too many players, and the reason behind it disappointing. Since we already know the original story, at the very least, a retelling can provide a few fresh takes and be entertaining, and I didn’t find either of those to be true. There are some interesting thoughts based on other fairy tales, which I appreciated and wished this book had. Unfortunately, the chemistry between Beau and Arabella didn’t jump off the page, and the various court women with their scrambled-up names based on emotions (Rega, Espidra, Hesma, etc.) became annoying as the book went on. I spent the last 20% just wanting to wrap everything up and see how the curse would be resolved.

Beastly Beauty has a beautiful cover and attempts to look at "Beauty and the Beast" in a new way with female empowerment, self-love, and forgiveness as the main themes. But the overly complicated curse, courtly women with their word scramble names, and the lack of chemistry between Beau and Arabella made it a slog for me.

2.5 stars

Fairytale retellings are my WEAKNESS. The movie Beastly? Alex Pettyfer stays in my mind rent free. Beastly Beauty is a genderbent retelling of Beauty and the Beast obvi. I was so so so excited for this book but it fell flat in my opinion.

My main issue was that the writing/dialogue felt all over the place. It didn't read smoothly which is SO important, especially for fantasy. The relationship between Beau and Arabella felt mid. I feel like nothing imporant really happens until the last 30% of the book. If there was more in-depth character development and relationship development, I think it would've changed my opinion ALOT.

The plot had so much promise, but the execution needed some improvement.

Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book’! The characters were fun, the story was unique while still being familiar, and I loved the dialogue

Lovely Retelling

"Beastly Beauty" by Jennifer Donnelly is a remarkable read that served as the perfect antidote to my day's blues. It was a day dedicated to the comfort of books and tea, which was a delightful respite, despite not feeling my best.

This novel offers a fresh take on the classic "Beauty and the Beast" tale, with a twist that includes a gender reversal and a profound message about embracing one's imperfections. The protagonist, Beau, is a thief burdened with the responsibility of caring for his younger brother—the last of his kin. Intent on using a hidden stolen ring to forge a new future for them, Beau's plans are unexpectedly thwarted when he and his band of thieves encounter a castle that seems deserted. A chase by a mysterious beast leads to Beau being abandoned by his comrades, forcing him to face his inner self and the castle's hidden perils in order to survive.

Jennifer Donnelly's storytelling took unexpected paths that captivated me, a quality I've come to admire in her writing. From the intriguing opening with Espidra and a young girl engaged in card games, to the cleverly disguised identities of Arabella's court ladies—each revelation was a delight. The narrative masterfully interwove elements like the enigmatic clock that initially intrigued but later terrorized the thieves. Although I anticipated the conclusion upon learning about Arabella's curse, the way it unfolded was nothing short of exquisite.

I eagerly anticipate revisiting "Beastly Beauty" to uncover any subtle clues I may have overlooked on my initial journey through its pages. Prepare to be so engrossed that you'll want to devour this book in one sitting, and perhaps keep a box of tissues within reach, just in case emotions run high.

Jennifer Donnelly can do no wrong. I loved this gender-swapped Beauty and the Beast, especially as it added new elements that made it so much more than just a simple retelling.

Such a fun and twisted retelling of a classic! I was very intrigued with how this beast origin story was gender bent and influenced heavily from emotions. The author did a superb job illustrating how pivotal our emotions our and how we must embrace them versus trying to control them otherwise we’d all explode like our princess. I also liked how the love factor wasn’t a true romance one, but instead showing how important self love is.

3.5🌟

*Nothing is more real than a dream, the voice was right. Dreams were powerful. They were mirrors to the soul.
*Love wasn't for the weak. It took courage to love another human being. It took ferociousness.
*Without the light we would not appreciate the darkness. There i good to be found in difficult feelings.

I love Beauty and the Beast and tend to read anything that has anything to do with it. Love retellings of the story and this wasn't any different. While it wasn't my favorite retelling, I still really enjoyed the story!

This is my 4th Jennifer Donnelly with the others being her other retellings (Poisoned, Lost in a Book, and Stepsister) and I love the way she brings a new twist to an already loved story! I can't wait to see what other stories she retells and read those!

A gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast is something I expected to thoroughly enjoy, especially considering I’ve heard people rave about Jennifer Donnelly’s writing.

This promising premise didn’t live up to its expectations. This book took me so long to read as I struggled through it, hoping the story would improve. Between the pacing, the voice, the writing style, and the sudden POV shifts with no warning, there wasn’t much to keep my interest piqued for more than a few pages at a time.

Arabella’s curse was ill-explained & I was unenthusiastic about the curse happening due to her being too emotional.

So little was put into Beau’s backstory that it might as well have been cut altogether.

I was expecting the action to be more intense with higher stakes.

This one took me a bit to get into it, but when I did, I fell in love with the story! I had absolutely no idea what was gonna happen so the plot twists were nice! The clean romance was even better & we always love a HEA!

While I like the idea of a gender bent Beauty and the Beast retelling, I don't know if I would say that this one worked out super well. I liked some of the characters, but I think that some of their presence needed more motivation or explaining--like Arabella's court, the ladies just kinda show up and though we eventually get a bit of an explanation, it was too little too late for me. I think that my biggest issues with this story, though, were the pacing and the overall narrative voice. I found the pacing of this story to be a bit frustrating, and I often found myself wanting to skip forward because it was just too slow for me. I also think that the narrative voice could make the POVs hard to distinguish at times. In a print book, I could easily flip back a few pages or have my finger in the book to be able to go back and remind myself of who was speaking, but in the eBook ARC it was just frustrating and not easy to do. Overall, I didn't hate this but I didn't find myself really liking it much. I have a hunch this will be a book that I know I've read but ultimately don't remember much about as time goes on.

*3.5

I liked this but it took way too long to explain anything. I don't feel like I really understood the book until about 70% and that feels too long for me. I also kind of wish it was just Beau and Arabella's pov. All the different thoughts kind of distracted me. All in all the two of them were cute.

I received an arc through netgalley.

This is my first Jennifer Donnelly book and this has definitely opened my eyes to dark fantasy retellings. The gender reversal is done so well and the supporting characters are amazing. I love the interpretation of the curse and all the characters that entails. The characters definitely have to work for their ending and it was beautiful! I can’t wait for read more from this author! I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving a free copy.

This book presents an intriguing take on the classic "Beauty and the Beast" story. In this version, the main character, Arabella, is considered too ambitious and emotional and becomes the "Beast." As a result of societal pressure to conform, Arabella's inability to suppress her passions leads to a curse that confines her and her loved ones to a castle. Years later, a thief named Beau arrives, offering hope for breaking the curse. The novel explores themes of self-acceptance and societal expectations, challenging the traditional ideas of beauty and power. Donnelly's storytelling is captivating and urges readers to confront the emotional prisons we create for ourselves, making this story a powerful reminder of the importance of being true to oneself.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC copy for review! It was an interesting read with a gender swapped main cast of the beast and the handsome? It had a more whimsy prose that was fun and I enjoyed reading it!

I found Jennifer Donnelly years ago and devoured her Tea Rose trilogy. I read through that and several of her other works and then time passed and I fell out of touch with her work. Fast-forward many, many years and I came across an ARC of Beastly Beauty. In some ways it was like re-uniting with an old friend but one who has changed slightly in the years.

Beastly Beauty is a re-telling of the story of Beauty and the Beast but instead of the beast being a man, the beast is a woman. Arabella has been cursed to change into a beast until love enters her heart. Her castle has been isolated, a decaying bridge connecting it to the outside world. Servants and her Court have been imprisoned with her for nearly one hundred years. At the center of the castle lives a giant gold clock that ticks down the time.

To this scene enters Beau, a thief with his own past and hurts to heal. Beau and Arabella slowly being to unravel their secrets and discover how to live, love and move forward. A truly beautiful story with some twists that make for a richer story than the original fairy tale. Highly recommended.

Beau and his fellow band of thieves are running from the law in the forest when suddenly a fog descends upon them, and a gothic castle appears. Finding what they think is a safe haven, they enter the castle.
They start to steal what they can, when suddenly, a beast appears. The beast tries to take away their leader, but instead, the thieves trade their youngest thief, Beau, for their leader and tell Beau they’ll come back for him.
Now, Beau has to find a way to escape.

There’s a lot more to the summary, but I’ll just stop there 😅

I have a lot of mixed emotions about this book. I LOVE reading Beauty and the Beast retellings! I’m always looking for ones to read, especially unique ones, and this one definitely had a unique take on the fairytale.

This is a gender-bent retelling of Beauty and the Beast with Beau being the “beauty” and Arabella being the beast. Beau is a thief and Arabella supposedly is a terrible selfish girl who only cares about herself, and not to mention she has a lot of secrets. Neither are exactly the type of character you would want to love.

Beau had a charm to him that you couldn’t help but love as you read the book, and especially the fact that he has a younger brother that he loves and needs to get to, and that just made me love him more.

Arabella, I couldn’t figure out at first. She wasn’t nice, but she also seemed to be a facade of her true self. It’s interesting to learn about her as the story progresses.

This take on the fairytale was unique in that, not only is it gender-bent, but Arabella’s is cursed with her emotions being live persons who basically talk her down and make her feel like the worst person. It was an interesting on how one may view themselves and how they fight to escape those self-damaging emotions to come out at the top in the end.

There’s also a few cute scenes in here that made me go “awww”, and maybe a bit corny, but hey! Corny is fine sometimes! I also liked reading a book that’s YA, borderline MG, with no cursing, or almost no cursing. It was refreshing.

So, those are a few things I enjoyed and appreciated about this story.

Now, for what bothered me….(there might be very slight spoilers down below)…




Based on the setting, this seemed to be more in the past, but the phrases and word choices were very modern and felt very out of place for the setting I anticipated. It confused me.

With that being said, the writing was not my favorite. The style seemed to try to be poetic or old English style, but then a word like crap is thrown in and it ruins the aesthetic of the book and setting.

The romance and plot fell very flat after the first 1/3 of the book I would say. The start of the book is very well done, and then suddenly it just kind of turns into a mess. The romance is insta-love. Like I was shocked at how quick they fell in love 😹 It didn’t make any sense.

I think what bothered me the most is that there is absolutely no explanation as to how this curse happened. There’s a brief scene that kind of tells you when it happened, but literally no detailed explanation as to how this happened. There seems to be no magic in this world and yet there is in this castle and with Arabella, but how…???? How did her emotions become humans???? And why didn’t they all disappear at the end once the curse was broken???

And the way the curse was broken, I mean really? That could not have been possible to just break that quickly with the “requirements” when we had what? Half an hour remaining?

Anyways, I really liked the concept and it is unique. The writing style and details of how everything came about was lacking for me, but others may enjoy, especially if you need a fantasy to read if you’re just getting into fantasy!

I received an early e-ARC to read through NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

I'm a devoted fan of Jennifer Donnelly! She manages to write dark, magical tales filled with beautiful prose that captures you from the first page. This retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" is clever and fresh featuring a female "beast" in the main literary role. There is so much emotional depth and symbolism throughout that gives just the right flare to this world of magical realism. Both Arabella and Beau are broken characters, and their backstories (and the snippets we get about the side characters!) add another emotional layer to the tale. As the clock ticks closer to the final chime, ending the curse, but also the end of everyone's life, the desperation and suspense is suffocating. Secrets, mystery, reflection, self-flagellation, learning to forgive and love...this book is more than just a fairytale.

While I enjoyed the banter and buildup of our couple's relationship, the intense feelings/love between Arabella and Beau felt a little much too soon. We had foes, friends...FEELINGS! Almost like we needed an extra chapter filling in with evidence of this sudden declaration. even though the chemistry and connection were there. I still adored the couple...and it is a fairytale, so...:)

4.5 stars

Have you ever been reading a book, and just had to stop, breathe, and just sit and think about how beautiful what you just read was? I had to do that multiple times in this book. This is not just another Beauty and the Beast retelling. This is a deep look into emotions, how they affect us, and what can go wrong when we let them take over. And it was just so good. I can't seem to put into words how amazing this book was.

Thank you to Jennifer Connelly, NetGalley, and Scholastic Press for an ARC of Beastly Beauty. All opinions are my own.

I was really excited for this one - as a big time Beauty and the Beast girlie, I was hype to read a gender-bent version with the typically masculine Beast role played by the FMC. Unfortunately, I don’t think the book really held up.

While the idea of the ladies of Arabella’s court being her emotions was clever, the chaotic presence of all of them went on too long without being explained. By the time the explanation came, I was too annoyed with their inexplicable role in the story and tired of hearing about them.

The multiple third person POVs also confused me a *lot*. I would be spending the first few lines trying to figure out who was speaking instead of engaging with the content.

My last big issue is that I think the “love” between Arabella and Beau came out of nowhere. They spent little to no time together, and suddenly were exchanging “I love you’s”? At least Belle/Beauty in the original story actually had some quality time with the Beast before falling in love.

The last 7% of the book redeemed a lot of the failings of the previous 93%, moving it from a 2 star to a 3.

Beastly Beauty is a gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast. While there are seemingly millions of other retellings of this tale that also did a gender-swap, Donnelly does a nice job of putting her own spin on it. The beast in this story is not physically a beast, but instead has the beastly side of a personality. The main concept of the curse surrounding negative emotions compared to those being intwined with a beastly outer appearance, such as the Disney version, was unique in its execution. In this story thief Beauregard Armando Gernandez de Navare finds himself trapped in a castle he tried to rob. He ends up meeting resident Arabella and the two align themselves together to try and break the curse to be free.

The writing of the story is easy to follow, however, I think it had a little trouble in its identity. On the surface, this novel seems to be a young adult one, yet it is also read as middle grade. There are novels out there that have balanced both genres together, however, it is rare where it doesn’t come across as not knowing its place. This novel was, unfortunately, on that side where it kept trying to tell the reader it was young adult, but the evidence pointed to middle grade. As for the curse, it was a great concept, but I think there needed to be more to really illustrate it to the reader. It seemed more to be told to the reader rather than shown. I think some flashbacks to Arabella’s childhood to show her emotions would align a lot more with what the blurb promised. Another expansion that I wanted is romance. As Beau is trying to escape the castle, there were not many interactions with Arabella. For a romance in a story, I expected more than the writing delivered. Overall, I think the concept of the novel was amazing, but the execution just did not quite get there for me. I do still enjoy Donnelly’s writing and would try another from her in the future.

**I give a special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, Scholastic Press, for the opportunity to read this entertaining novel. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.**