Beauty Reborn

An original take on one of my favorite fairy tales, Beauty and the Beast has always been the tale that spoke to me, taught me the lessons it was supposed to, made me look at what's inside of a person's heart rather than what they look like, and made me think of others before myself.

I went into this book thinking I knew everything about these characters, but this book, made me look at every character I thought I knew differently and it was such a roller coaster of emotions.

We all think we know the story, of Beauty being torn from her family to pay the price of a stolen rose, but what if Beauty made that choice for herself, to escape a life filled with terror, to save herself?

Beauty Reborn tells many tales spanning the best and the worst of humanity, with moments that make you remember that some people can be so much worse than Beasts while others can be kind for no reason other than kindness and it reminds us that what's on the inside is really what's important.

I have to say I found Beauty's love of music to be something that made me look at her in a completely different way, it just gave her more depth and made her a more complex character.

The letters, reading poetry, the interactions between Beauty and Beast, there were moments of such tenderness that I found myself wanting them to find love in this situation, it had started in desperation for both of them and I wanted them to have their own happily ever after.

On the other hand, we have Stephan, oh Stephan how could you be such an evil evil man and yet fool everyone, even Beauty's sisters had stars in their eyes where he was concerned if only Beauty had listened to her brother.

As the story goes on and you see what drove Beauty to make her decisions, what Stephan had done, some moments will be triggering to some but explain so many of the moments we have in this book. 

It's a lovely example of visceral storytelling, I could picture the castle, I could sense the wonder of the magic, and I began to feel for almost all of our characters while being enveloped in this familiar story that's just different enough to keep me wondering what would happen next.

Thank you to Shadow Mountain Publishing and NetGalley for providing a copy of this e-book, I have voluntarily read and reviewed it and all thoughts and opinions are my own.