| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: Low (One instance, totally undescribed. And the beast does think about the subject occasionally.) Violence level: Medium-Low Back Cover: “I am a beast. A beast! Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog but a horrible new creature who walks upright. 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.” |
I've got to admit, I really loved this book. It has just the right mix of the original fairy tale with the modern retelling. You know what's going to happen; the joy lies in seeing how it happens.
So much is pretty much true for any retelling of a familiar story. There were two things that made this one stand out—for me, at least. The first was the love story, which was so excellently developed that you could see the two of them becoming perfect for each other. The love not-at-first-sight has always been one of my favorite parts of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, and this retelling handles the slow growth of friendship and love perfectly. The second thing was the way the Beast's character changed over the course of the book. He was totally believable as a jerk at the beginning, and totally believable as a good, kind person at the end, and every step along the way was also totally believable. Sort of a logical progression, growing from one thing to the other. I think that's why it takes so long for the girl to show up—Alex King is giving the Beast some preliminary time to change enough so that he's capable of falling in love.
Some of his lines, though—sheesh. Every once in a while, he comes up with something taken right from the fairy tale, which makes them incredibly corny in a modern setting. Which corniness he does at least acknowledge.