Beauty by Robin McKinley

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Pages: 271

Publisher: David Fickling Books
Released: 25th of October 1978


A strange imprisonment

Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in looks, she can perhaps make up for in courage.

When her father comes home with the tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must go to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father protests that he will not let her go, but she answers, "Cannot a Beast be tamed?"

What I Have To Say

I've been wanting to read this book for a while. It was so good! McKinley has a really good way of being descriptive and evocative with such a talent. The way it was written as well made it feel exactly like it was an old fairy tale. I've read a lot of original fairy tales and it really did feel like one of them. 

Beauty and the Beast has never been my favourite fairy tale but this retelling of it was so beautiful. It felt really real as well, which is especially good because of how contrived fairy tales tend to be. 

My only real criticism of it was that there was a lot of time spent building up Beauty's family and not enough came of it. After she went away they were barely heard from again. I would have liked to see more of how they coped after Beauty let. 

All in all, I loved every word of this book, even if it ended a bit too quickly. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in fairy tales.