Beastly

Alex Finn

304 pages

We are all familiar with the story Beauty and the Beast and Beastly follows that story with a few changes. In this retelling our main character is Kyle Kingsbury a rich and handsome high school freshman. His father is a news anchor who has taught him looks are all the really matter and Kyle believes that to his core. He isn't a very nice guy even to his supposed friends. When a girl in his English class call attention to herself by complaining about voting for people for a school dance just by looks alone. He decides to teach her a lesson and asks her about the dance fulling intending to take another girl. At the dance he gives a white rose corsage to the ticket girl since his girlfriend didn't like it and publicly humiliates the girl from English class, or tries to. Later she shows up in his room and puts a curse on him to be ugly outside to match his insides. Because he showed some kindness in giving the rose to the ticket girl he will have two years in which to find a girl who loves him. We follow him though these two years.

I enjoyed Beastly quite a bit. You know how the story will end but the modern adaptation was original and engaging. The main character changes quite a bit throughout the story and learns that there is way more to life than how you look. I'm waiting for the movie adaptation but I'm afraid they will have changed to much of the story.