Review: Beastly

Flinn, Alex. Beastly. New York: Harper Teen, 2007.

You know the story. Boy behaves badly. Gets cursed by a witch. Has a limited amount of time to find a girl to love him in all his beastliness. This is exactly what happens to Kyle Kingsbury. His bad behavior pisses off a witch. Forsaken by even his father, he takes refuge in gardening. His roses are his one peace. He wastes one year feeling sorry for himself. He finally embraces reality and adopts a new identity, Adrian King. Can he find a girl in time to break the curse?

What I thought: As a fan of fairy tale re-tellings, I wasn't disappointed in Alex Flinn's urban version of Beauty and the Beast. I enjoyed that the reader gets Kyle's story from his point of view. In traditional versions of the story, readers often sympathize with the girl. After all, there's a reason the beast was cursed in the first place. For fans of Donna Jo Napoli's Beast, this is a must read.