As Old As Time: A Twisted Tale
Written by Liz Braswell Book Review by Miranda Fraser ISBN: 978-148470728-9 *Deep Breath* Oh man, Disney once again agreed to a publication of a novel involving their version of Beauty and the Beast. In this TWISTED TALE the question boldly written on the cover was, "What if Belle's mother cursed the beast?" Naturally, I was very intrigued. What would that world be like? And how closely would the author follow the story using this concept? Best place to start is the beginning! The book started off immediately with the opening sequence, only, the person telling the story was clearly the enchantress. And she added things that no one else could possibly know. From there the story goes on to describe a small kingdom where people of magical decent and non-magical decent alike could live in peace. There were always those who hated the magical ones, but life in this little kingdom was different than elsewhere in the world where there was no chance to survive if you were magic. In this town we meet a man named Maurice, no magic to him but a love of inventing. To some, that is very strange, and so what a better place to build his inventions than in such a diverse town? He happily makes himself at home in this town and quickly begins making friends as well. He spends most days with his roommate Alaric and their, odd, friend Frederick and eventually he begins courting the lovely Rosalind. She is as beautiful as she is powerful and loved by, almost, all. The early chapters of the story go back and forth between Maurice and Rosalind courting, getting married, etc. and the beginning of the animated movie. Liz also did a fabulous job making sure to keep the dialogue correct for these chapters. There were added lines to keep the story going and conversations flowing, since the musical numbers are excluded, but past that it was very much the same as the movie. I appreciated this SOOO MUCH. I kept thinking "YES! DISNEY THIS IS THE NEXT ANIMATED BEAUTY AND THE BEAST MOVIE! ***But for the love of God do not make it a computer animated film***". Since I've seen some rotten reviews where people thought the chapters with Maurice and Rosalind were stupid and pointless, I thought I'd clarify something. Even if you don't care about her father's backstory, it was important to have the backstory of the kingdom. It helped answer questions about what their world was like that some enchantress would just come along and curse an eleven year old boy. Simply being a brat isn't a good reason, right? Well this safe little kingdom where diversity was at an all time high starts taking a very dark turn. Magical beings are being attacked, sometimes killed, but mostly they are vanishing without a trace. The King and Queen do not seem to care that their kingdom is falling apart. In fact they have the audacity to ask Rosalind for help when the plague reaches their land, even as they tell her how little they care for her people (the charmantes as they are called). And so you see this backstory is very important and will continue to be so right until the end. Now, I had stated that the story clearly followed the original movie. Well it did, right up until the moment she's in the West Wing. Instead of stopping her the Beast is too late and Belle actually grabs onto the enchanted rose, and it disintegrates in her hand, thus completing the curse. But also revealing to Belle how the curse happened and that it was her own mother who had set it. Up until this point the story very well could have just been information we didn't have from the animated film! Now we've entered an alternative universe where we all get the answer to the question, "what would happen if she'd touched the rose?" Moving on, now that Belle fully knows about the curse and also just solidified it coming to fruition is there a way to undo it? The two begin to work together to uncover the truth of the kingdom and why her mother would have placed the curse. All these years Belle simply believed her mother abandoned them but now she fears something worse has happened to her. What I did enjoy about this new twist on their relationship is it really gave them more reason to get to know the other. They had actual conversations about their lives and who they were, something that if they did it in the film we never saw. Belle tells him about Gaston and even gave a very insightful commentary on how he views Belle, "It wasn't that he overlooked the oddity of the father and daughter; it was more like it was irrelevant compared to Belle's status as the prettiest girl in town. Plus he felt that he could fix her. Make her normal" (38). Honestly, was that not already the problem in the world? Believing people need fixed for being different. Now as their friendship blossomed Belle begins to get signs from her mother, she can't quite understand them but she is definitely trying to warn Belle. She discover that his parents died of the plague, hence answering the question about where the king and queen are, but that the Beast was untouched. Most likely her mother's doing, even the Beast notes that not a child in the castle ever caught the plague. She also finds out that the Prince loved the ride horses and spent a lot of time with his favorite servant, Alaric Potts, the stable-master. YEAH, ALARIC POTTS! (See, I said those earlier chapters were important.) But that Alaric had gone missing some time before the curse and the beast's parents blamed him for treating Alaric too kindly and told him it was his fault Alaric took off and abandoned his job and his family. Add that the pile of mysteries they are trying to solve, because even Mrs. Potts knows that is insane. We also find out that the Beast let all the horses go after the curse occurred, because they were afraid of him and it wasn't fair to them. But we also discover that the Beast fully understands the curse, he knows the enchantress was only trying to stop him from being the type of rulers his parents were. And he admits that his parents were not making the best choices for their kingdom. It was wonderful to get to see this side of the Beast. If you watch and obsess over the film as much as I have, you see it, but it is never really given it's moment to shine. As they start to run out of time the castle begins to sink into the ground and the servants are having a harder time getting around and waking up in the morning. They are becoming sediment items with no life and it terrifies them. They finally come up with a plan to leave the castle and seek help elsewhere. The Beast also fears his own curse, knowing that eventually his inside will be as beastly as his outside, but Belle knows he won't hurt her. There's a scene on page 356 that shows this conversation and honestly I felt it was the first real sign that they had fallen for the other. They go to find help, someone who might know about the curse and how to undo it but stop to see her father first. In the movie she goes home to check on him and finds the villagers trying to take him away, this time he's already missing by the time Belle gets there.... and then things get terribly out of hand. Belle vanishes and the Beast races time to find her and save her before anything happens to her. So now imagine when Belle tried to use the mirror in the movie, she showed them the Beast and hoped it would help, this time a TALKING BEAST attempts to use the mirror to prove to the townsfolk that HE is not the threat! Talk about alternative universe, right?! But will the villagers hear his plea and can they find the answer they need to stop the complete destruction of the Beast's home and servants? In conclusion, I adored this book. This alternative universe as it were. The ending was, different. I felt let down by it because I was expecting and hoping for a different ending than the one I received. It wasn't necessarily a terrible ending mind you, it was just different. But from where I left you (the Beast seeking help from the villagers) everything goes spiraling out of hand and the full truth of everything comes out! I mean, where the Charmantes were going, what the villagers are really like, what happened to Belle's mother, and so much more! I truly loved this novel, I just wish there was more. I don't believe there will be a sequel to any of the Disney Twisted Tales by Liz Braswell, but one can hope! Read on my fellow bookworms! And as always links to the author can be found below.
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Belle: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast
By Cameron Dokey Book Review by Miranda Fraser ISBN: 978-1-4814-7966-0 Belle is a short retelling of Beauty and the Beast written from the point of view of Beauty herself. It is a little over 200 pages and can easily be read in one sitting. This is also good for any child that loves to read. Though, I am always hesitant to give a reading age, simply because at 8 I was reading 'White Fang' and 'Black Beauty' with ease. So you'll need to judge by your child's reading abilities at what point you think this book will be good for them, but by the fourth grade I'd say they should be able to read this with ease. Unlike other novels, this one had very little to do with the Beast. The first 100 some pages are all about Beauty and her family. That of course leaves the rest of the fairy tale to be rushed. For someone like me, that's a big disappointment, but I still have to give the novel credit. To begin with, Dokey gave Beauty two older sisters. They were beautiful in an almost night and day sense where Belle found herself to be exceedingly plain and not beautiful at all. The oldest sister having dark hair and blue eyes and the middle sister having golden hair and green eyes. Belle has brown hair, brown eyes, and finds herself to be fine, "In fact, I have a face that is much like the day on which I was born. It contains neither too much of one thing, nor too little of another" (6). The issue of whether she is beautiful or not is so ridiculously over worried that I started to hate the book. I get that looks are important, but from the age of seven on our Beauty is so concerned with her lack of looks and comparing herself to her sisters that she is almost whiny. She even comments on it later saying that it was foolish, but none-the-less there's about a hundred pages of whiny comparisons and complaining about her name. Her father, of course, tells her this is ridiculous and that he sees each of his children as beautiful no matter what, and that maybe one day Belle will see she is beautiful. (Essentially he uses the 'a rose by any other name' mentality to fight her hating her name.) I'd also like to point out that unlike other versions of this story her mother is actually alive throughout the story, so that was definitely different. Aside from that the story is so very much like Robin McKinley's version that I was disappointed. Now, I know Robin McKinley took a lot from the original, it is a retelling after all, but somehow it just lacked a positive view when this novel did it. Essentially, you have two beautiful sisters, a younger sister who sees nothing beautiful about herself and a relatively rich family. When she is in her teens her mother gets angry that she is hiding away and forces her to go to a fancy party. At the party it is discovered that the town believes she is so beautiful that she hides away from everyone's sights. In fact, when she gets ready for the party she argues that her mother only wants her there for contrast so that her sisters look better, but when she sees the dress her mother picks out for her she realizes that in some way her mother thinks she is just as pretty as her sisters. When their family's riches go down the drain and they move to the country all the sisters get to know who they are a little better and form a close relationship because suddenly their looks no longer matter. *eye roll* It should also have been mentioned by now that Belle has a special ability to carve wood. Unlike most novels where she is a bookworm this Belle is a carpenter and has the ability to hold a piece of wood and know in her heart what it wishes to be carved into. A unique take that I rather enjoyed. On the way to the country she hears a legend about the woods. It was about a couple's love being so strong in life and death that where they are buried a special tree, called the Heart Tree grows. If the tree finds you worthy it will drop a branch for you to discover what true love looks like. Of course massive foreshadowing is happening here. When her father goes on a business trip he gets lost in the woods and ends up at the Beast's castle. Instead of the rose, surprise, surprise, the Father comes across the heart tree and a branch drops to his feet clearly intended for Belle. The Beast decides that the daughter it is intended for must come to him in a weeks time because she will be able to show him true love's face, when he himself has never seen it. That's where things get interesting, and of course shoved into the last few chapters. Instead of a nightly proposal he asks her every night to look into his face until the count of five. Every night she tells him no and worries over why she cannot seem to find what lies within the heart tree branch. In place of the mirror, an element we know so well, the lake the heart tree grows by is the mirror. The Beast tells her to look into the lake and it will show her what her heart desires. Of course he sets her free, because he loves her, and when she comes to realize it is love that set her free she quickly returns to him. In the end, this book was different. As I said, it deserves some praise, but it is not one of my favorites by any means. I feel like the heart tree and some of the aspects of the Beast's curse were very original and could have been a very great story. I also felt that the final lesson, that beauty is in the heart not the outer appearance, was well thought out. "For what love truly is, where it truly resides, is in a place that none of us can see" (192). I recommend reading it for yourself and seeing what you think. You may love this retelling and that's okay, that's the wonder of books. Author's links Beauty and the Beast: Lost In A Book
By Jennifer Donnelly Book Review by Miranda Fraser ISBN:978-148479098-5 This is a Disney Press novel, in other words THIS is Disney's Beauty and the Beast, specifically the new live action versions approved publication. If you watched the animated Beauty and the Beast hopefully you know that there were multiple movies. A Christmas story and then one that included little adventures Belle and the characters went through during her time in the castle. I loved those movies because they added so much more to the relationship between Belle and Beast, it also showed just how long the time frame was between her coming there and when the curse was broken. It was not a quick love story by any means. But I digress, the reason this is so important is because this book should be viewed as one of those mini stories. In Donnelly's novel the story starts where Beast has just given Belle the library and she discovers a magical book that she can literally walk into. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but that's the gist of what you really need to know. First of all, I said this was definitely the live action version's story. Well, besides the cover which has the obvious new library and Emma Watson on it, there are also plenty of changes that give away that this is not the old animated version we know so well. The name changes are the biggest one, for some reason Disney changed Babette's name (the feather duster) and Sultan's name (the footstool dog). I know there were other names that were added or altered, but those are the two that really upset me the most. Though if I'm being fair Babette's name has changed once before, so maybe Disney just can't agree on names. On a positive 'name' topic Belle's village is specifically called by name throughout this novel, and while I don't recall it ever having a name for it before, I love that it is called Villeneuve which is a clear ode to the original author of Beauty and the Beast. Her father's job has changed, they added people in her village, the Beast's attire description was clearly the new live action version, etc. Now, is any of this novel going to play into the actual movie, I highly doubt that, but if you go see it just remember that sometime after being given the library this happens. And while we're on the topic of whether anything from this book will play out in the actual movie, I am very curious to see what they show of the enchantress. For in Donnelly's story there is a very important sub-plot going on between two sisters: Death and Love. They have a bet going on about Beast, and when Belle becomes a part of the picture the stakes get higher and Love and Death are determined to prove that the other is right. Love, obviously believing that the curse will make the Beast the man he should have been and that Belle will be the one who will break the curse. And Death believing that love is foolish and that she will leave him to be forever cursed that way. As interesting as that already is the added element is that the curse AND the enchantress are being credited to Love. So will we see them in the movie? I don't know, but I am excited to find out! Belle is obviously not thrilled to be in the castle. Her entire life has been changed and her father is no longer a part of her life. The worst part for her is not knowing why. She keeps trying to discover how one rose (they apparently brought back the act of her father taking a rose for her) could have cost them all this. She and the Beast are just barely making amends and moving towards their friendship, remember this is a slow story, and while the servants are always kind and helpful she still longs for more. When the Beast gives her the library it is a huge step in the right direction, we see that even in the animated version. Belle is delighted and spends most of her time there. We see a lot of character development between her and the beast, though slow, in this novel. She tries very hard to get through his rough exterior, even attempting to liken him to one of the old fables: Androcles and the Lion. I also feel I should mention that the Beast has a more complex character in this version and that is something I greatly appreciate. He tells her, " I like books better than mirrors. Mirrors only show us what we are. Books show us what we can be". There is a lot of symbolism playing out in this novel! For the most part the biggest aspect of the story is the enchanted book Belle ends up with. Beast warns her that there are some books in the library that may be enchanted and thus give her a hard time, so she's not too surprised when she discovers a book that she can walk inside. Once in the story, she comes to know is titled Nevermore, and in it practically anything she wants can happen. She meets a woman who calls herself a Contess and the author of the story and with each trip back to the book she promises Belle more and more things enticing her to never leave. Of course, spoiler alert, the woman is Death. Death hates to lose and so she is playing more of a trick than a direct cheat. If Belle indeed retires herself in the pages of the book she will nevermore be able to leave, her death will be sealed, but so will the Beast’s. It's a wicked game and Belle is falling for it. But as the biggest lesson from Beauty and the Beast goes, do not be deceived by appearances. Is it worth giving up the rights to your own story to believe what someone else is writing for you? As Belle slowly comes to terms with how her adventure is going she also must face the growing truth that the Beast is not the brutish monster she thinks he is. In conclusion, this was a very good book. I give it praise for being an excellent story within a story. I have little to complain about, but I also will say that my excitement for this story was not what it usually was. Now, that is not to say that I did not enjoy it or eagerly read through it, because I finished it in four hours. But the edge of my seat that I found myself on was different than it has been for other novels. I was just as eagerly entranced in seeing how things would play out, but perhaps knowing that Beauty and the Beast always ends happily made me less nervous to see the ending? I'm not sure, but I do recommend it, especially if you love Beauty and the Beast! And as always links to the author are down below! Cruel Beauty
By Rosamund Hodge Book Review by Miranda Fraser ISBN: 978-0-06-222473-6 Once again, I feel like I had reviewed this novel before... but I can find no trace of it. So I must have just blabbed about it to everyone I personally know. I KNOW for a fact that I got my (future) Mother-In-Law to read it the first time I read it, so I am very persuasive and I hope I can convince someone else to go pick up a copy of this novel! As you know from this series of book reviews I've been doing that I adamantly love the story of Beauty and the Beast. It is my favorite fairy tale of all time. THIS ONE is literally one of the BEST versions of it I have ever come across. Hodge incorporates wonderful elements of Greek mythology to write a nail biting version of a classic fairy tale. To begin with, Beauty and the Beast is traditionally a French fairy tale, but this version takes place in a land called Arcadia which is in Greece. Knowing that, it is not surprising that Hodge incorporated Greek mythology into her story. In fact famous names like Persephone, Pandora, and Zeus are specifically named throughout the novel. And if you're anything like me and LOVE Greek Mythology then you will find yourself drawn into this novel so quickly! In this novel Nyx, our Beauty, is a twin, so the author also incorporated the element of Beauty having at least one sibling. But unlike the other novels, this is a very different type of sibling relationships, in other stories our beauty is kind and perfect and her sister is selfish and cruel, but in this version our beauty is, the less-loved of the two daughters, mostly because she does not look like her (dead) mother, and the other sister has always been babied and adored. Our Beauty actually has a jealousy for the difference in their relationships with their father, so much so that she worries that she hates her more than she loves her sister. In this novel her father, Leonidas Triskelion, is the leader of the Resurgandi which is a Hermeticism group specifically focused on taking down the Gentle Lord. Aka the Lord of Tricks and controller of demons. He made a deal with this demon, yes, the one whom he is sworn to destroy, that he would give him one of his daughters as a wife on their seventeenth birthday in exchange for allowing him and his wife to have children. Of course we all know that deals with demons never go as planned and while she had the two girls he was promised she was unable to carry the babies with good health and died shortly after having them. He spent the next seventeen years training Nyx to learn all the ways of the Resurgandi so that she may go to him and destroy him and his home from the inside out. Essentially, he was sacrificing his daughter, for no one knew for sure if this would work. Now, the Gentle Lord, I'm sure you've guessed, is our story's Beast. I think one of the things I loved so much about this take on the story is that there aren't two acts in between when the story starts and they actually meet. So the whole novel is their Beauty and the Beast story, and what a unique one to boot. One where the father purposely bargains her away, she is sent there to destroy her husband, and he is not just any monster but a demon lord. It's so good and so exciting! Now Ignifex, for that is what he is called, is described as a 'sweet faced calamity', ink black hair, high cheek bones, and crimson red eyes with cat slit pupils. He has a shadow that looks almost exactly like him, but less harsh features in comparison as well as ridiculously blue eyes. He is called Shade and is sworn to do his master's bidding. Unlike in other stories this 'beast' has had several wives, all of whom he says died rather early into the marriage but he hopes Nyx will be different. She is defiant and fights him at every turn, but he does not hurt her or attack her, in fact, he likes that she is not a scared puppet. I suppose it is important to mention why the Gentle Lord is so hated by all. He is considered to be a liar because all the deals he does end terribly for those who make them. Arcadia has been sundered from the rest of the world and so they only know their small land for the last 900 years. And when I say that they were sundered I mean, literally you cannot travel past a certain point without immediate death and there is no blue sky, only a parchment dome. They believe the Gentle Lord killed the last prince and now rules his castle. And demons attack humans and either kill them or drive them mad, and since he is believed to control all demons, he must be sending them despite the people's tithes to him. So now that you know why he's so hated let's discuss what the Resurgandi believes Nyx can do to end his reign. The Resurgandi reminds me a lot of alchemy and the importance they place on balance with the elements. They believe that in the Gentle Lords home there are four hearts: air, fire, water, and Earth. And if she is careful and able to do a hermetic sigil over each one it would in theory collapse his home and kill him. But the hearts will be disguised and she will need to find them all first to do this. In the meantime, she discovers many things about the house and her husband. Here's where I want to discuss classic elements of Beauty and the Beast and how they are fitted into this novel. Instead of a nightly proposal Nyx is given the opportunity to guess his real name and if she gets it right, he is free of his masters (oh yeah, he's not the big bad boss everyone thought he was!) and if she guesses wrong she dies. Needless to say she refuses to guess his name. Shade comes alive at night and is able to separate from Ignifex and roam the house. He becomes an ally of Nyx and in this sense becomes the 'dream' version of the Beast from the original novel. In her search for the hearts she finds a room with a mirror that is a door she cannot unlock. But she discovers that she is able to see her family through this door and so spends many days checking on her sister. There is a library where she does as much research as she can but most of the books have been censured by The Gentle Lords rulers and so pages are burned through. And when the time comes that he allows her to go home to see her family, he gives her his ring so that she can use his powers to go from place to place. This is also a classic element of the original novel as he gives her a ring she need only spin to return to his home. I really enjoyed the way the classic elements were present in this version. Equally important to why I adore this novel is not so much the way she incorporated the elements, but rather how she developed the characters. For once Beauty is not a selfless person. She is in an inner battle of wanting to be loved and have what she wants for once in her life, and being a dutiful person and fulfilling what everyone else wants of her. Ignifex tells her at the very beginning that he likes a wife with malice in her heart. They started as enemies, she hated everything about him, was repulsed by the very thought of him, but slowly became attracted to him in every way. The more she learned of him the more she loved him. And in return he did as well, he only took wives because he was told to but with Nyx there is more to her and her presence. He tells her, "You lie to me, but not to yourself. That's why I love you". He sees the darkness inside Nyx, the hatred she has accumulated for her unfair life, he sees that just like everyone else she wants happiness but she does not think she deserves it. He loves that she is complex and deep and completely human. And I adore that relationship. The way they fell for the other, the way he protects her and things start to go wrong and they begin desperately to seek out the answer. But their love is also very complex, "Then he pulled me into his arms. 'I still might kill you', I told him, much later. He traced a finger along my skin. 'Who wouldn't?'" (237). I honestly feel that their active cat and mouse, the mysteries she slowly unravels, the betrayals and the myths that are woven so intricately together make this novel so wonderful. Finally, I said that I had read this novel before, and I had, but I have to say I loved it even more the second time through. I think I appreciated it more as well. The first time through I enjoyed it, but I complained bitterly about the ending feeling rushed, and it does, but the second time I read it, I think it made more sense to me and it upset me less. So brace yourselves when you get to the ending, because once you actually unravel the cause of the curse and the cost of undoing it you're going to sit there going, "WHAT?!" for a few minutes. It's alright, the ending is still happy, I promise. I loved this so much because I felt so much for the characters as the story progresses. I found myself falling for this demon lord, myself and still wish there was a sequel to this novel. The next best thing however is that Rosamund Hodge wrote a novel called "Crimson Bound" which is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood and I look forward to reading that when my Beauty and the Beast Book Review Series is over. Read on my book worms and as always links to the author's pages are listen below. |
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