Beastly by Alex Flinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Alright folks! I hated the movie trailer. Stupid was one of the main reasons. The cute guy becomes ugly and finally realizes there’s more to life than looks. Ah. Thank you for such a keen observation, Mr. Holmes!
But the book, I honestly found it great. Once you remove the movie images from your head and you understand the true difficult journey the male MC undertakes until he finds his new self, you appreciate the story for what it truly is: a great tale. Beauty and the Beast is a classic story that has been revamped many times, yet, it never lost its flavor.
Kyle is popular. He attends the best high school in town. He’s rich. He’s handsome. He’s a jerk. He despises everything that is not him because he thinks he’s perfection. But one day, he meets Kendra. Kendra is a witch and she casts a spell. Kyle becomes a monster. He loses his beautiful appearance and is doomed to live sheltered from the outside world in a five story house in Brooklyn, because his father is too busy to deal with his own son. The father-son relationship will never heal. Kyle learns to live without anybody besides his maid, Magda, and his tutor, Will. To break the spell and go back to normal, Kyle must fall in love and be loved in return. How will he meet the girl of his dreams? How will she accept him for he is? Every day that goes by, Kyle changes his perception of the world. He accepts his condition. He even believes he’ll remain an animal forever, until a junkie tries to break in on a fateful night and Kyle makes a deal with the man to not say a word to the police in exchange for his sixteen year old daughter, Lindy.
I devoured that book. I enjoyed every minute of it. I accepted Kyle and I gave him a second chance. Will you?
The Manicheans 