Book Review: Beastly

Mood: trilogied
Listening to: 'Fall to Pieces' by Avril Lavigne
Hungry for: bavarian coffee
Bella says: zzz, as usual.

Okay, so I've bought this book recently and, as I do, I've read and reread it several times, plus researched everything I can about the up-and-coming movie adaption that's due out in March next year, with Alex Pettyfer (Stormbreaker, Wild Child) in the lead role of the Beast and Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) as his love interest, Lindy.

Beastly is a very interesting book in that it's teen lit, but not normal teen lit. Its brilliant teen lit. Simply written from the narrow-minded perspective of a rich, handsome and selfish boy as he loses his looks but slowly gains a heart, it cuts all the fluffy goo that normally accompanies chick lit romances (think Twilight), but instead cuts to the core of the novel, which is basically a modern retelling of the classic fairytale, The Beauty and the Beast. The book is a rarity in that it is deeply romantic and sentimental, but still every page is enjoyable, with none of the syrupy stuff being the cheesy, cliched, tacky cringeworthy jargon we're used to nowadays.

Because we all know the basic storyline, I'm not going to shy away from spoilers here. Just giving you a notice.

Kyle Kingsbury is a rich, handsome but cruelly selfish boy who has been raised by his image-obsessed father to believe that 'how much people like you is directly proportionate to what you look like', and consequently develops a deep dislike of 'ugly' people - particularly scholarship students in his elite school, Tuttle, as they have neither money, status or good looks, the three things he treasures most in life. One of his favourite pastimes is scheming with his 'evil bitch' girlfriend, Sloane, concocting plans designed to humiliate the 'ugly' people he so detests.

On one of his pranks the victim is a new student, a creepy, eccentric goth girl called Kendra Hilferty, who Kyle cannot describe in any other way aside from 'witch'. When she openly claims that Kyle is 'ugly on the inside, where it matters most' and that he is 'beastly', he seeks his revenge by pretending he has a crush on her, asking her out to a dance but then showing up with Sloane instead. Disgusted that he tried to inflict pain and humiliation on a fellow human being, Kendra, who really is a witch, casts a spell on Kyle to make him a beast with fangs, fur and claws. She tells him that because he exhibited a single act of kindness - he gave a girl who was a volunteer helper at the dance the rose corsage that Sloane refused (because, as a white rose, was considered too plain and cheap and was not the 'purple orchid' she specifically asked for) - Kendra says he can break the curse by making someone fall in love with him within two years, and proving that love with a kiss. Kyle believes this to be impossible, convinced that nobody could look past his horrible appearance and, somewhat truthfully, that aside from his lost good looks he has nothing worthy of love or attention. Kyle is left with a magical mirror, in which he can see anything and anyone he wishes to see.

Kyle's father desperately searches the globe for a cure for his horribly disfigured son, but when his attempts are fruitless, he puts Kyle in a house in total solititude, aside from the family maid, Magda, a blind tutor, Will, and his guide dog. Bored, frustrated and abandoned, Kyle begins to read literature about characters who are ugly and abandoned (The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and changes his name to Adrian King, Adrian meaning 'dark one'. During this time, Adrian joins an internet chatgroup under the name 'BeastNYC', chatting with other people who have apparently been changed by witchcraft as well. Adrian also starts a rose garden at the suggestion of Will, who is partial to roses.

After a year of solitute and several failed attempts to find girls to fall in love with, a robber, who also has drugs, attempts to break in to Adrian's house, only to be caught in the act. Terrified both of Adrian's gruesome appearance and the prospect of being arrested and jailed, the robber offers Adrian his daughter to live with in Adrian's house. Through the mirror, Adrian realizes that the robber's daughter, who's name is Linda 'Lindy' Owens, is the same girl he gave the rose corsage to the day he was transformed. Before she arrives, Adrian decorates a suit for her, complete with a king sized bed with designer sheets, a full private library and a complete wardrobe, eager for her to be impressed with his effort and wealth. Lindy arrives, however, frightened at the prospect of being a prisoner of a man she doesn't know, and is offended and unimpressed at her 'kidnapper's attempts to impress her. She refuses to come out of her rooms for several days.

When Lindy eventually comes out of her rooms and sees Adrian's gruesome appearance, her hostility melts away to a mixture of pity and compassion. They become friends, and Adrian begins to fall in love with her, but it appears that Lindy does not reciprocate. During the winter, Adrian's small household leave the brownstone they have been cooped up in and go to a private ski lodge for the winter.

Shortly before the second year of Adrian's curse is up, he shows Lindy his magical mirror, who sees through it that her father has become homeless and desperately ill as a consequence of drug dealing and excessive drug use. She wants to go back to see him and Adrian selflessly allows her to go, asking her to come back to him 'only if she wants to...as my friend, not as my prisoner'. Adrian believes that she would never return and thus never break his curse, having never shown any sign of loving him, but let her go out of love. Adrian and his household return to the brownstone, where he is resigned to spending the rest of his life as a monster. Using his mirror, he keeps track of Lindy, who has rescued her father from utter destitution but had lost her scholarship to Tuttle, as a result of being absent for nearly a year. Adrian looks on guiltily as she puts up with a rubbish downtown school.

Adrian then sees Lindy being abducted by a man armed with a gun, and rushes to her rescue, getting shot in the process. As he lays dying, he asks Lindy to kiss him, which she does, and by doing so she breaks the spell, causing Adrian to return to his normal body. Confused, she tries to run away from Kyle, not knowing that he is actually Adrian, but cannot escape from him because he is 'taller and stronger than he used to be'. He then explains who he is, and then they live 'happily ever after' in Kyle's brownstone, which is no longer a prison. Because of some selfless requests he made of Kendra as a beast, Will regains his eyesight and is given a temporary job as an English teacher at Tuttle as he studies in a university by night to become an English professor. Magda, the maid, who has been seperated from her family who live in their native land abroad, is reunited with them after being apart for decades. Kendra then reveals that she is actually Magda, having been condemned by the witch community to be a servant to a 21st century American family forever, seperated from her family, but because Kyle requested that if his spell is ever lifted Magda might be able to see her family again, Kendra is reunited with her own witch family, which is represented as a murder of crows which she joins.