"Beauty and the Beast" by Jenni James

I am getting a little tired of all of the remakes, reboots, and retellings that have been crazy popular the past few years.  Sadly many of these either seem to be rush jobs that appear to have been produced solely for profit, not out of joy or passion or I have simply seen the same story so many times that it really has no effect on me any more.  Because of this, I was a little nervous about reading Beauty and the Beast by Jenni James.  Thankfully I thought it was a pretty decent read.


Like my experience with Robin Hood, I haven't really been exposed to a Beauty and the Beast story not produced by Disney.  I didn't have many expectations story-wise since I am not really aware of the origins of the story (and admittedly I'm still not).  This book in particular follows Cecelia Hammerstein-Smythe and Prince Alexander (if you guessed that Alexander is the Beast, then bonus point to you!).  Cecelia is utterly repulsed by Alexander's very existence but finds her friendship with the wolf the be one of the best experiences of her life.  Of course this proves to be a problem as Alexander is the wolf.  That was probably my biggest concern with this book.  The curse placed upon the prince only made him change into a wolf at night.  During the day he was his usual human self.  It was an interesting twist since he still had to find someone that loved him in his wolf form, but I think I would have preferred something a little different.  Maybe I was just frustrated because Cecelia fell for the wolf so quickly but wouldn't give the Prince any sory of chance to clue her in to the whole situation.  Overall, I felt that this was one of the better fairy tale adaptations I have seen (after all, I am horribly spoiled by the Disney cartoons and am therefore a little picky).  I look forward to reading more Faerie Tale Collection from James.

What can I say, I love this part!


Happy Reading!
-Melly