A review by constantine2020
The Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Fantasy + Middle Grade + Classics

I don’t need to provide any synopsis for this book because this is a story that all the adults and children are familiar with. I never read this classic before and all I knew about it was through what Disney has depicted on screen when they released their 1991 animation film. I still have not watched Disney’s live-action film starring Emma Thompson but plan to do so in a few days. 

The Beauty and the Beast as a story is different from Disney’s adaptation. In this book, the girl’s name is Beauty and she has siblings. The movie adaptation is just the first half of the book. The second half of the book is more about the backstory that involves the Prince’s past, his mother the queen, and his uncle the king. There is a big part of the story that talks about fairies and their intervention. In the second half, the reader will also know the truth about Beauty’s origin. 

This is a classic so it is expected for the writing to be a bit dense and at times too wordy. I feel this is totally normal for a fairytale book that was released in 1740 to have such a writing style. In my opinion, the second half could have been shorter a bit and I think the author has catered the story to accommodate the Queen’s absurd demands. I understand the time period in which the book was written and the obsession with the different classes in society. The author obviously wanted the story to be accepted by society because marriage outside your class must have been a big taboo back then. Unfortunately to accommodate such a thing means to sacrifice the believability part of the story. This will make me as a reader name the second part as “too convenient”. And here is where I prefer the Disney animation version more over the original story. 

This edition of the book that I own is such a beautiful collector edition. The quality of the book is great, the illustrations are so gorgeous. The interactive features are gimmicks though. They just add more thickness to the book without any benefit. I think this edition would have been better off without them. I still recommend getting this edition if you really love this fairytale.