Beastly by Alex Flinn

Beastly is a modern-day re-telling of Beauty and the Beast. If you aren't familiar with the story, I will summarize it for you:

Kyle is rich and spoiled. He's good looking, and his father's a hot-shot, which let's him get away with pretty much anything. He invites an "ugly" girl to the dance, planning on standing her up, which is his mistake. The girl turns out to be a "witch" that casts a spell on him. She turns him into a beast to teach him a lesson about beauty. At the dance, Kyle had given the corsage he had bought for his date (who rejected it because it wasn't expensive or pretty enough for her) to the girl at the ticket booth. The witch recognizes this kindness, and then gives Kyle a chance to break the spell. She says that if he can get a girl to fall in love with him even with his appearance, and if he loves her back, and they kiss within 2 years, the spell will be broken.

My god, I loved this story. I love the story of Beauty and the Beast, and the morals of it. And I loved how the author was able to translate all of that into a modern-day retelling of this classic story. I disliked Kyle in the beginning, he was sooo full-of-it. But after a while, I really started to feel for him. I actually started to like him and want for the spell to be broken. I love it when authors can change your mind about a character! The writing was excellent, I think that Flinn captured the teenage mind of Kyle perfectly, and made him so real. I loved the morals, the characters, the writing, the plot, the romance, and the re-telling.

I wanted to read this book because I heard it was going to be turned into a movie, and I wanted to read the book first. I had read Cloaked by Alex Finn, and I really liked the whole modern-day fairy tale idea. Soo I decided to read Beastly. I would definitely recommend it if you plan to see the movie, or you like Beauty in the Beast, or you like fantasy, or romance. Basically, there's something in it for everyone!

The only thing that bothered me when I was reading this book was the cover. The book I had was the newly published one:

I don't know about you, but Kyle doesn't look very "beastly". In fact, I think that Alex P is still very attractive. And Linda isn't supposed to be conventionally beautiful, but I don't think Vanessa is really doing it for me because, let's all face it. She's pretty no matter what!

I plan on reviewing the movie Beastly once I see it, and compare it to how well I think it followed the story, which was better, etc. So stay tuned for that!

I would recommend Beastly to just about everyone, and I think it deserves 5 out of 5 stars !!!!!

Happy Reading!!!

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