Beastly

It's a good thing this was short. And that those annoying web chats ended. They didn't add anything to the story other than make me think the author is considering retelling more fairy tales.

I usually find fairy tale retells interesting. And this one was being told from the opposite point of view (the Beast instead of Belle) Add in the ya genre and I thought it had possibility. Unfortunately that possibility never evolved into anything but sugary sweetness and cheese. I found the author's style, especially the dialogue to be juvenile. The characters were extremely stereotypical - the pretty, popular kids were all vapid and shallow and more concerned with the next party than anything else while the poor/scholarship kids were smart and homely looking all while being naive. And that's pretty much where the character development stopped, even for the main characters. I did like Will - he made Kyle/Adrian slightly more tolerable. Probably because in being more adult and less stilted, Kyle also became that way.

The end was what finally did me in. Everything in a nice neat bow. From Kyle instantly becoming human again without any pain or confusion unlike the initial transformation and Lindy didn't see a thing to Will getting his sight back and a spiffy new job to Kendra being all accepted back in her family that the reader didn't even know existed (terrible plot point) to Kyle and Lindy going back to Tuttle (why? is it the only school in NYC now?)

It's been a long time since I read Robin McKinley's Beauty (it's now on my re-read list), but from what I remember, I'd most definitely recommend it over Beastly.