Beastly by Alex Flinn is a modern retelling of The Beauty and the Beast story. The story starts out with Kyle a rich, beautiful, super popular boy inviting an ugly unpopular girl to the dance as a joke. After he returns home he is confronted by her and finds that she is a witch. She turns him into a horrible beast and tells him that in order to release the spell he must fall in love and the girl must kiss him. Kyle moves into a house alone with just his housekeeper and his blind tutor and changes his name to Adrian. When a drug addicted man breaks into his house and offers to give Adrian his daughter Linda he insists that the man bring him his daughter to live with him.
Beastly is a delightful modern retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story. It focuses on inner beauty and character development. I appreciated that the author did not make the relationship between Linda and Adrian abusive at all. This wasn't a story about a girl taming a beast (such as the Disney version) but a story of a boy learning to value character, intelligence and personality over looks and money and a girl being able to love him for the changes he has made on the inside.
Appropriateness: This is a book that middle schoolers will love. There is one incidence of drinking in the beginning (used to illustrate what a horrible person Kyle is) but besides that there is no objectionable material in the book. The romance is sweet and the message is terrific. The lexile is 580 putting it at a low fourth grade level which makes it an excellent book for reluctant readers.
The movie adaptation of the book is to be released in early March.
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