Review: Beastly

Title: Beastly

Author: Alex Flinn

Publisher: HarperTeen

Pages: 304

Rating:(out of 5)

Summary from Goodreads:

"I am a beast. A beast. Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog, but a horrible new creature who walks upright – a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. 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 a perfect life. And then, I’ll tell you how I became perfectly beastly."

I found Beastly to give an enthralling, modern twist on the well known Beauty and the Beast fairytale. The characters were interesting and the plot was refreshing. No vampires or werewolves! (Not that that is a bad thing at all! I love my vamps and wolves!)

The characters in Beastly, I thought were pretty cool. The main character Kyle Kingsbury, who is transformed into a beast by a magical spell cast upon him, matured so much through out the novel and it was cool to watch. At first it was small things, then it would grow larger and larger. The character of Lindy, who is Kyle's love interest, is a very strong character. She puts up with so much to protect the ones she loves and to succeed in life. The last two characters who I want to mention are Will, who is Kyle's blind tutor, and Zola, his life long maid. These two characters are very interesting. Will is witty and Zola only ever wants the best for Kyle. They are both two very good people.

I really enjoyed to story line. It definitely was based off of the classic Beauty and the Beast scenario but it was so so good! There was just the right amount of action, drama, and a small hint of romance for the story to be great. I found it refreshing that they didn't just fall in love at first sight. I was kind of getting tired of reading about the same old thing, two dumb teens fall in love really fast, fight and break up, and end up together again. This book breaks away from that. The relationship in Beastly is much deeper and doesn't feel the need to too physical too fast. In fact, I could actually say that by the end of the book I would have maybe wanted just a little more out of their relationship. (Although I didn't really.)

The only thing that bothered me, and this is totally just how I felt and many will probably disagree with me, I felt the ending didn't fit quite right. It was a good enough ending but I feel that the writing toward the end was lacking what it had throughout the book. Maybe it was just my depression that such a great book was ending or maybe not. It just didn't sit quite right with me. That's the only complaint I can really make about this book though.

Those little internet chat things. I've heard a lot of people say they didn't like them, but I personally loved them. It was cool to have a few different stories going on in the background of the main one.

Overall, I found Beastly to be an exceptional book aside from the uneasy feeling I got from the ending.