A review by emfass
His Beauty by Jack Harbon

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

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

2.25

I'm intrigued by what this author was going for--a sexy paranormal retelling of Beauty and the Beast where the Beast stays a beast? yes please!--but a lot of it just didn't work for me. It was waaaaaay more gory & violent than I was expecting, and I found the characterization of the Beast inconsistent and Isla's growing trust of him unjustified for most of the story. I liked Isla's arc in that she took agency and didn't let the Beast push her around, but otherwise a lot of it fell flat. I was also confused by some side references to God/religion, but we were given no context about Isla's connection to spirituality OR time/setting of this piece, so it landed strangely.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Violence, Gore, Death of parent, Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Grief, Misogyny, and Sexism

Moderate: Animal death, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Infertility

death of father on page, grief, kidnapping/imprisonment, multiple threats of sexual violence, animal death in self-defense, murder in self-defense, past death of parents, references to emotional and physically abusive father in the past, interspecies (?) sex on page,