
Beauty by Robin McKinley
I hate writing negative reviews, especially for books that are obviously both loved and respected. Beauty appeals to a lot of people, and you may well want to disregard my opinion and go with the majority. But for what it's worth, I can't quite bring myself to recommend Beauty for those of you out there who enjoy reading novels in the fairytale genre.
To McKinley's credit, Beauty was written before the sudden demand in retold/fractured/fleshed-out fairytales. In fact, she may have very well started the trend with this novelisation of the traditional Beauty and the Beast story. But these days, authors tend to put a spin on the source material. For example, Donna Jo Napoli often gets the villain's side of the story, as she does in Spinners Read More