This book brings me right back to the hours upon hours I spent as a kid lying on the family room floor with my feet on the heating vent, reading fantasy novels. I love it so much. Precise, vivid, moving.

Beauty is a perfectly decent little book, relating the traditional fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. Even though it was McKinley’s first novel, it’s fluidly written, in an engaging voice; I love the way McKinley writes and was ready to sink into this novel almost immediately. And it proved to be enjoyable enough, with a likeable heroine.

But of course there is a but. This book adds little to the traditional tale, beyond Beauty’s love for Greek translations, her loving relationships with her sisters and her spending most of the book feeling insecure about her supposed plainness. It reads more like an expanded short story than a retelling. Rather than taking the framework of an old tale and adapting it to make it her own, McKinley simply turns that tale into a short novel through the use of detail. The fact that the lead characters are, in fact, known as “Beauty” and “the Beast” is a good indicator of McKinley’s approach to the material. In all fairness, she published this book in 1978, more than a decade before the Disney film, and before the current fairy-tale-retelling craze. Still, while McKinley is a superior writer in terms of the ability to string words together nicely, I prefer Juliet Marillier’s take on Beauty and the Beast in Heart’s Blood. Marillier keeps the fundamental elements of the fairy tale but adds enough plot elements of her own to make an original story. Some readers will prefer the simplicity of McKinley’s approach, but it left me wanting more.

Finally there’s the ending (possible spoilers.... if you live under a rock). It’s terribly rushed, and I was disappointed with the fixation on physical beauty, with the Beast’s transformation and Beauty’s discovering her beauty being crucial to their happy ending. (Marillier does a better job with this aspect of the tale, too.) It’s unfortunate, especially for a young adult novel, to make the insecure heroine become “worthy” of the beautiful prince through a physical transformation of her own, rather than through her many admirable qualities.

So in the end, this just isn’t my favorite fairy tale retelling. It’s a well-written story and I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone who might be interested from reading it. But my favorite McKinley novels are still her more divisive adult books, Deerskin and especially Sunshine.

Review from 10/17/21:

Wonderful story, terrific audiobook narration

I highly recommend this terrific, award-winning children’s book to fans of fairytale retellings. Readers of all ages will enjoy this engaging story.

I first read this marvelous retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale the year it was originally released, in 1978. I was so enthralled by it, I wrote an enthusiastic fan letter to Ms. McKinley, which she very kindly answered. Years later, when my daughter was around seven years old, her father and I would take turns reading this book out loud to her. Since then, my daughter and I have both reread this book multiple times, and it is a family treasure. My granddaughter is turning six this year, and soon she will be old enough to enjoy this wonderful children’s book as well.

Somehow I completely failed to notice when the audiobook version of this book was released in 2013. It was recently brought to my attention when Audible ran a sale on it. When I informed my daughter I had purchased this audiobook, she was as excited as I was to learn of its existence and purchased it as well. We were both delighted to discover that the narration by voice talent, Charlotte Parry, is very well done.

Reread 10/29/24: I just listened to the audiobook version again. This book is a real comfort read for me, and I continue to greatly enjoy it with each new visit to this story.