Publication Date: March 14th 2017
Genre: Young Adult, Retelling, Fantasy
Synopsis:
Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them.
So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance.
Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?
“Fairy tales are about lessons. Those who are virtuous and true are rewarded, while those who are wicked and greedy are punished.”
In the beautiful Russian winter forest setting, it comes down to the beauty or the beast. Being a huge fan of the story of Beauty and the Beast, I enjoy reading retellings of the classic tale. Although this story started out really great and unique, it fell short of my overall expectations.
Spooner did a fantastic job at creating a beautifully crafted world, that was so atmospheric and gave strong fairy tale and folklore vibes. She also set the character of Yeva up perfectly as the unique girl who is not like the other girls her age. She wanted more than what was expected of her, she wanted to go to the woods. The place where she felt more herself and had all the memories of growing up and listening to the tales her father would tell her.
“There’s no such thing as living happily ever after — there’s only living. We make the choice to do it happily.”
At times I felt that Yeva was a little annoying, but overall really liked her as the main character. She was fiercely independent and was following her own direction regardless of what others thought. Yeva loved her family more than anything else and the lengths she went to in order to protect them was amazing! I have to say my favorite part of this whole book was definitely the dogs!
The real let me down for this book and might just be something personal that I cannot get over is that every once in a while it was too close to the original. With retellings I am such a firm believe in following aspects of the story and using it as inspiration. At times through this book though it was such a smack in the face at how blatantly it was done. The obvious usage of the original story pulls you right out of the atmospheric uniqueness of the story. The biggest culprit of this was the use of the name Beauty. I felt like it was not unnecessary and felt forced.
Spooner was able to beautifully weave together some themes about the duality of everyones nature and that nothing is neither good or bad. Yeva discovers some things about herself, the Beast and the stories her father use to tell her, that so perfectly aligns with the true humanity of a person.
“Every day she was more a lady, every day less herself.”
Overall this was a decent retelling with a fierce heroine, beautiful Russia setting, unique elements and a loving family. Spooners writing was beautiful and the ending was just too cute, but there were some of the story aspects that were just too much like the original that it turned me off.
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