Beastly

Beastly by Alex Flinn

Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 304
My rating: 4.5/5
Summary (from Goodreads):  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.

 My review:


The main reason I picked Beastly up was because I saw a trailer for the movie, and loved even just that.  I"m not normally a fan of fairy tales, especially the cartoon princess Disney ones.  That's why I loved how modern and realistic the twist on the tale was.  I loved how the beast was actually a boy who was once popular, and who was just in high school.  It was very interesting, I found, to see that the witch was someone from Kyle's class.


My absolute favourite thing was the characters.  It was amazing to witness how much they changed throughout the book.   Kyle was, in the beginning, a good-looking guy who only liked people who were pretty or handsome.  He thought nothing about those who were ugly.  He was horrified when he got turned into a beast because of that.  As he got used to being a beast, he started to realize how looks weren't the most important thing in the world.  Although he first captured Lindy so that she would eventually love him, he began to love her, even though she wasn't pretty.  I loved seeing that he became a much happier person even as he was ugly.


I think that the part about Kyle having a rose garden was an added bonus.  It tied in with the story, and really helped show how Kyle was feeling, and how he was becoming more and more selfless.  Along with the characters, that was one of my favourite things.

The only thing that I didn't really like was the settng.  I understood that the house he was in was more like a mansion, and that it was supposed to be very nice, but I never really got a picture of it in my mind.  I think that more detail on it would have been better.


Beastly was the perfect mix of romance and magic and learning about yourself, and what it really means to be ugly.  I loved it!