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alex flinn, beastly, book monsters, books, fairy tales, fantasy, lady ozma, review, young adult
Beastly
Written by: Alex Flinn
Pages: 304
Now a major motion picture starring Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer
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
A modern-day telling of “Beauty and the Beast” in the young adult world, “Beastly” is a charming novel. It does not stray far from the original fairy tale, aside from the setting of today’s NYC.
Even though it’s another retelling of an age-old story, I still enjoyed the read. Alex Flinn truly captures what it is that draws us to the classic fairy tales, and I enjoyed that this told the side of Beast. You can enjoy watching him grow as a character over his time in beast-form. You see the struggle he goes through, abandoned by his father.
I have not yet seen the movie, though it is on my Netflix Queue. I will admit, having seen the previews of the movie, I was surprised that in the book the character is more like the Beast we know and love from the classic tales. I thought that perhaps the way the character looks in the movie previews was from Flinn’s descriptions.
The one thing I loved was Flinn’s tossing in Beast using an internet chat room to talk to other transfigured souls. It threw in an interconnecting fairy tale theme in such a modern way and I loved it. He really nailed chat lingo and put the effort into considering his characters, such as the frog prince missing letters due to his webbed froggie feet. That is the sort of finishing touch in a book that keeps me coming back to an author’s work.
I have several other Flinn novels at my disposal. They just moved up the list to try to read as the summer days draw to a close.
*This post is part of the Book Monster's Review-a-thon going on this week. Expect a busy blog week!*
–Lady O
Lady Ozma's Journey 
I, too, really liked this one! Thought it was VERY well done and I agree totally about the chat room scenes – they were amusing! We saw the movie (I had great hopes after reading the book) but were disappointed. They changed lots of stuff, things I thought were really important to the story. Most important, he wasn’t really a beast in the movie – just Mr. Super Tattoo man. Oh, well, yet another one where the book is so much better than the movie.
And what else has he written – I didn’t research that!! Yes, I will be interested to read more by Flinn. Liked this one a lot! Two thumbs up from me –
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I’m glad I’m not alone in liking this one! I do know that they didn’t make the boy quite so “beast”-like in the movie which I’m not sure the reasoning behind. (Commentary track???) I’m still interested in seeing the movie. But I’m not racing out to buy it or anything.
I’ve got just a couple of his other novels. They look slightly fairy-tale-esque.
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When I saw the previews for the movie, my assumption was that they did the whole tattoo thing because it was easier/more real for a movie than showing an actual beast would have been (a little TOO fairy tale-ish). But unfortunately, they changed up the story, too, taking out all of the things that made the book work so well. Don’t you just hate it when they ruin a great story by making a movie out of it?? I like it so much better when they make the book better. But there are only 2 movies that I can say I feel they did that. Sad.
The 2 movies I like better than the books are The Ultimate Gift and Stardust. DeNiro in drag – I can laugh about that every time I think about it!!
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I can get the whole beast vs what they did… I think beast works for the fairy tale, but there’s so many things that we see as “beastly” today. Just the line in the book where they refer to a girl as “beast” or “Beastly” (I can’t remember now) just because she wasn’t a five foot ten blonde bonmbshell… Some things just do not carry over to big screen anyway. Could you imagine a beast rubber suit? Ack. However, fundamentally changing a story irks me. WHy do they do that?
Those are two great movies. And I’m with you on DeNiro in drag. But I happen to LOVE To Wong Fu because really? Those three in drag? Totally worth the price of admission! 🙂
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I read this one a while back and absolutely loved it. Enough to buy it and ask someone who was going to a signing to get it signed for me. 🙂 Such a great writer and a great story!
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That’s saying a lot! 🙂 Have you read his other books? I’ve got a couple… I’d have to check my e-reader. I think they are e-books.
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