Cheap Beast (Book) (Donna Jo Napoli) Price

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Customer Reviews of Beast

A unique fairy tale retelling from an excellent story teller
Skimmimg through books at the library, I was intrigued by the spine design for "Beast." I started to read it. When I looked up again, after reading through the first six chapters without stopping, hours had gone by. I was DEFINITLEY going to take out this book! It was compelling all the time through. The ending was great, not even rushed like some books I have read.

The beast, in the book, turns into a lion. He is shunned by his hometown of India, and doesn't know where to go, or how to live. By one of his mother's books, he is guided to France where he meets the stunning and sympathetic beauty, and the curse is broken.

Everyone knows the story line of this novel. Still Napoli has redone the story in a greatly creative way. She shows the emotions of the beast as he goes from home to home, not fitting in with a lion pride, and finally residing in an old abandoned French castle. Napoli is one of the first authors who have written this story from the Beast's point of view. The whole time through, I was amazed by her awesome ability to write a great novel. She creates many interesting twists to the tale, such as the beast living in India, and does it in an astoundingly creative way.

I greatly enjoyed this book. It really deserves more than five stars! You HAVE to read it!

I would recommed this book to young adults, because some of the material is mature for younger readers. When younger readers get olsder though, they should really read this book. It was really one of my favorites! Donna Jo Napoli is really a GREAT storyteller!!!

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Lion-Hearted
In an intriguing addition to the popular Retold Fairy-Tale genre, Napoli reimagines "Beauty And The Beast" from the Beast's point of view. She sets her tale in exotc Persia and makes her hero, Orasmyn, the princely son of a provincial Shah. Because he fails to observe the proper rituals during a festival, Orasmyn angers a pari or djinn (fairy), who curses him by turning him into a Beast. In this case, he is transformed into a lion, with no more or less than a lion's natural abilities. In fact, beyond this magical transformation, there is no other magic in the story, which is handled with scrupulous realism. Beast journeys all the way from Persia to France on foot. He finds an abandoned castle to live in and plants his own rose garden by hand (or paw). And he has no ability to speak like a man; he communicates with humans by scratching words in the dirt with his claw.

Compare Napoli's book to Gillian Bradshaw's "The Wolf Hunt," a straightforward medieval romance, except for the fantastical element of the hero transforming into a wolf. In both books, the contrast between realism and a magical premise is very compelling, especially in the voice of the hero, struggling to hold on to his inner humanity as his instincts become more beastly. Napoli's Beast, the virginal prince, can't help mating with two lionesses and devouring a fresh-killed stag in his animal form, yet his efforts to reconcile his human soul to his beastly self are heroic.

Napoli's "Beauty," Belle, doesn't come into the story until very late, with little time to establish her personality. And some readers may feel the story ends too abruptly, just at the moment that Orasmyn is restored. While Napoli's book may not be the difinitive or most romantic version of the story, its originality and exotica make it an appealing addition to "Beauty And The Beast" lore.

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Different, Not As Captivating as the Original Tale
Well I finally finished this book after reading it on and off for like...two years. It wasn't what I expected and in fact it did not meet my original expectations. I think the story could have been developed a little bit better and there not being too much detail on little things such as gardens and the surroundings. Yes, description is needed, but, at time it seemed as if this whole book was just a story of descriptions of the surroundings Orasmyn saw on his journey across Europe and Asia. I liked the twist of this story, though, I will admit that. The setting is more exotic for most of the journey w/ Persian palaces and the Indian wildnerness. The story explains how the Beast became so cruel and nasty, not because of his personality, but because of his new lion-like instincts. There were new characters here. Gone are Lumiere and Cogsworth and in their place is simply a fox, Chou Chou. The characters are well-developed and you can identify with most of them. The writer did a decent job here but I feel as if there was something missing, something that didn't make this story as magical as the real one.