Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

The plot follows that of the renowned legend: Beauty selflessly agrees to inhabit the Beast's castle to spare her father's life. Beauty's gradual acceptance of the Beast and the couple's deepening trust and affection are amplified in novel form. Robin McKinley's writing has the flavor of another century, and Beauty heightens the authenticity as a reliable and competent narrator.

This was McKinley's first book, written almost 20 years ago. Since that time she has been awarded the Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown and has delighted her fans with another retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fable, Rose Daughter. Still, McKinley's first novel has a special place in the hearts of her devoted readers, many of whom attest to relishing Beauty time and again. (Ages 11 to Adult)

Product Description

A strange imprisonment

Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in looks, she can perhaps make up for in courage.

When her father comes home with the tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must go to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father protests that he will not let her go, but she answers, "Cannot a Beast be tamed?"

Robin McKinley's beloved telling illuminates the unusual love story of a most unlikely couple: Beauty and the Beast.

First, what this book is not--it is not a slam, bam action book or gigantic doorstopper epic.
What it is--a wonderful romantic retelling of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast. A widower has three daughters, Grace, Hope, and Honour. As a young child, Honour decides that her name is boring and states she would rather be Beauty, and the nickname stuck with her. Kindly Grace and Hope grow up into great beauties, but Beauty grows into a gawky ugly duckling, little concerned with her looks, but proud of her intelligence and way with horses. They all live happily in the city until disastor strikes and they lose almost all their possessions. They move to the country next to a mysterious old forest and as years pass become used to hard work and the peasant life. Beauty thrives, but still suffers from low self esteem. Then their father goes back to the city to check on one of his lost ships and when he returns, brings her a beautiful rose. You know the story--he met the Beast who demanded one of his daughters in exchange for the father's life, because he dare to pluck the rose.

Beauty volunteers to got to the Beast, taking only her warhorse turned plowhorse, Great Heart. She meets the Beast and encounters all the mysteries of his strange castle and invisible servants, some fearful and some wondrous. A sweet and charming romance ensues as the Beast asks her every night for her hand in marriage.

The author really makes the character of Beauty come to life--her wry, self-deprecating humor, her love of nature and books, her wonder, and sometimes fear of, the magic surrounding her, the gentle changing and unfolding of her feelings about the Beast. And the Beast is just as wonderful, you can feel his sad yearning for love, his hard-earned wisdom, his patience with Beauty and her fears, his strength and temper and sorrow. There is wit and humor, sadness and joy. This is just a wonderful book that I read again and again.


Enchanting "Beauty"   November 21, 2004
E. A Solinas (MD USA)
35 out of 35 found this review helpful

The best-known and best-loved of Robin McKinley's books is also one of the best of the fairy-tale retellings -- "Beauty," a more enlightened, fully-drawn version of "Beauty and the Beast." There's a depth and a richness to the story and characterizations, as well as a beauty of atmosphere and writing.

Beauty (real name is "Honour") is the ironically-named heroine of the story -- she isn't beautiful, but is very intelligent. She has two sisters, the beautiful Hope and Grace, and a benevolent, wealthy father. Then all their lives change suddenly: the ships their father owns are lost, and the money goes with them. One of the sisters marries a poor but worthy country lad, while the other lost her beloved fiancee who captained one of the ships. After selling their possessions the family moves to the countryside.

The father leaves on a trip -- and returns with a single rose, a gift for Beauty, which carries the price of either his life or his daughter. Beauty leaves to go live at the castle of the mysterious Beast, with only her plowhorse to accompany her. She arrives at a castle of invisible servants, magical books, friendly animals, and a melancholy Beast who asks her to marry him every evening...

There is nothing new in fairy tale retellings now, but when McKinley first wrote "Beauty," it was a relative rarity. And even now, few of them are as intelligently written and have such solid heroines. Rather than giving her story a contrived "twist," McKinley merely fleshes out the storyline and gives the characters personalities.

The writing is excellent; McKinley writes the more prosaic passages of cottage life and the surrounding friendly village, as well as the more dreamlike, fantastical scenes in the Beast's castle. Lots of atmosphere, either in the poor but warm surroundings of the house, or the eerie feel of the castle.The dialogue is nearly flawless: McKinley doesn't write ye-olde-formal prose, but the characters never sound -- or think -- like modern Americans.

Beauty is a great heroine -- brainy, kind, wry-humored, brave and strong. Though the "Beauty" element is discarded, it is done so with the apparent understanding that this "Beauty" has brains and guts rather than a pretty face. The Beast himself is a little more shadowy; we never get inside his head the way we do Beauty's, but then the book is hers, not his. Beauty's father and sisters are equally well-done, avoiding the cliches of nastiness in favor of being likable or haunted.

Robin McKinley's debut "Beauty" is still among the best-loved fairy-tale retellings. With the help of a gutsy, brainy heroine, it rises above a mere retelling and becomes THE retelling.


A three dimensional fantasy tale of beauty...and a Beast   February 14, 2004
Schtinky (California)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful

What would happen if you took the flat fairytale of Beauty and the Beast, and fleshed it out into a three dimensional fantasy tale of a young girl who loves her father and her family enough to do anything to save them?

Beauty, by Robin McKinley is what you would get. Beautyys life starts out wonderful enough, daughter of a well-to-do merchant and ship-owner, living in luxury with him and her two sisters, Hope and Grace. When her fatherys entire fleet is lost, he makes plans to settle his debts and retire to the country with what little remained to him. Grace had lost her love Robbie on one of the ships, and Hopeys secret love Gervain, who was nothing more than an ironworker in Fatherys shipyard, steps forward to tell of a place to be had for little money in his hometown of Blue Hill.

He offers to travel with them back to his hometown and set up a blacksmithys shop with Father, and they all agree to do this. Blue Hill is a far cry from the city from where the girls came, and they struggle to fall into a routine of work that they are unaccustomed to. Beauty was the youngest, but also the strongest, and she was the one who took on the rougher, outdoor chores, leaving her sisters to care for the household. Life continues, Hope marries Gervain, who superstitiously warns everyone to never venture into the woods behind their cabin at any time.

Comes the day Father gets word of one of his ships coming in, returns to the city, and on his way back, of course, gets lost in the woods where he runs into the estates of the Beast. The fairytale bargain is struck, and Beauty agrees to take her fatherys place at the Beastys grand palace to keep him company.

McKinley tells a beautiful, fully fleshed out story here, far more than the fairy tale with loveable characters, believable events, comedy and tragedy and love. If you need a break from life for awhile, pick up Beauty and give it a whirl. Enjoy!


Gorgeous storytelling   April 29, 2000
DogsDeserveCompassion (USA)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

This is a retelling of the classic fantasy Beauty and The Beast. But this version has a bit of a twist, McKinley's "Beauty" doesn't quite live up to her nickname and can be more accurately described as an awkward teenager, a girl who prefers to spend her free time with books and horses. I liked her immediately. When her Father accidentally stumbles upon the bewitched castle of the "Beast" he is forced into a promise that will forever change Beauty's life. To give anymore of the plot away would be to ruin the magic of the book.

BEAUTY is categorized as a children's book (10 and up) but I think it will appeal to anyone who loves a magical, sweet, old-fashioned love story. McKinley's characters are well-drawn, sympathetic and just plain lovable, right down to Beauty's charming horse. This was another one of those rare "unputdownable" books for me. It's a keeper and one I intend to read to my babies when they're old enough to sit still long enough to enjoy it.


This could have been so much more   September 27, 2004
M. A. Bechaz (Australia)
13 out of 16 found this review helpful

I couldn't wait to finish this book...but not because I loved it, just because I just wanted it to be over and done with, so I could move onto reading something better!

I have always loved the story of Beauty and the Beast, and I have always been a sucker for rewrites of classic fairytales too. Thus I looked forward to reading this book like a farmer in a time of drought looks forward to rain.

How disappointed I was! Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad story, and Robin McKinley does bring a pleasing, fresh perspective to her interpretation of it, particularly in the background details and backdrops. But her writing style is just so...well, so ANNOYING! Her writing meanders, her timelines are askew, and where her paragraphs begin and end doesn't make sense. I don't think I'm being too picky here when I say (in a tongue-twisting way) that I just want to read a book that reads like a real book should! Some may call McKinley's style innovative or artistic--I can only call it painful! Where the story should have flowed like a downhill river, in many places it seemed more like sludge being pushed uphill. For a while there, I almost forgave the book for its strange style because it was written in the seventies--a time when, let's face it, experimentation was the norm in many aspects of life--but then I thought, hell no, Richard Adams wrote his incredible 'Watership Down' in the seventies, and it was absolutely brilliant! This book has no real excuse, except perhaps that it was McKinley's first novel. Hopefully her writing style has improved since then...but I won't be reading any of her other books to find out! (I'm just not that much of a masochist!)

Writing style aside, I also think that McKinley had problems with character development, or at least with the book's heroine she did anyway. The minor characters were wholly credible and well fleshed out, and I could even understand why the Beast had to be portrayed as broody and enigmatic too, but for all of the main character Beauty's alleged learning and wisdom, she actually seemed rather quiet and silly, and at times downright illogical. In spite of her having a brain, she doesn't say much of any consquence, or ask many questions. And I didn't sense much of a rapport or chemistry between her and the Beast, either--they only seemed to mesh because they had to, because they were lonely, and there was no one else. That didn't appeal to my sense of romance at all! It should have been love, not convenience, that brought them together! In fact, I think the heroine had more of a rapport with her horse than with the Beast. (Actually, the horse was the best written character in the book, perhaps because he says nothing: dialogue is NOT this author's strength; she does background details much better than she does conversations between people, which always seem stilted.)

This wasn't a bad book, but then again, it wasn't a brilliant one either. I can only wonder at the number of great reviews it's gotten--I don't understand that at all. Then again, I'll never understand the popularity of Adam Sandler movies either! I think perhaps its popularity is due to the fact that EVERYBODY already loves the story of Beauty and the Beast. It's a classic story we were all read when we were children, so it holds a special place in our hearts, reminding us of good times long past. But even if we loved the original story, that's no reason to love every version of it, including this one! Especially given the rushed ending on this, which is so hurried it will leave you not only unsatisfied, but also wondering whether a)the author was being pressured by her editor to meet a deadline, or b) she just got lazy, or c)she hasn't got a clue how to finish off a book properly, or d) all of the above.

I realise that by bagging this book, I'm going to incur the wrath of its diehard fans, who will rate my review as NOT helpful. But so what about that? I'm more concerned with honesty than popularity, and honestly, this should have been written better! No wonder the author went back at a later date and had another try at the whole 'Beauty and the Beast' theme by writing another book about it. I would have too if I'd written this.