I'll admit I'm picky about my Beauty & the Beast adaptations and retellings — partly because it's been done so many times and partly because Belle was the Disney princess I related to most. So while I wouldn't say this was awful, it certainly isn't my favorite take.

The resemblances to the original fairy tale feel incidental rather than purposeful: like when two books just happen to use similar sets of tropes. (Except for a few scenes that will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the Disney animation.) There are some common themes and motifs, but the former in particular are too heavy-handed for my liking, repeated every few chapters in cheesy dialogue.

And honestly, I wasn't really into the plot. The premise is interesting, but the narrative soon veers sharply into a romance where everything else becomes background noise. It almost felt like there wasn't conflict outside of repeated failures to communicate; the pacing was also uneven, so the first two-thirds felt like all exposition, leaving the majority of the action and resolution to be crammed into the end. The epilogue, in my opinion, was also unnecessary.

content warnings:

Spoiler

ableism, sexual harassment, minor gore, blood

rep:

Spoiler

implied-Black MC, chronically ill & physically disfigured MC, wheelchair-bound Asian secondary character, Latinx minor characters

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CONVERSION: 5.9 / 15 = 2 stars

Prose: 3 / 10
Characters & Relationships: 6 / 10
Emotional Impact: 2 / 10
Development / Flow: 2 / 10
Setting: 4 / 10

Diversity & Social Themes: 3 / 5
Intellectual Engagement: N/A
Originality / Trope Execution: 2 / 5
Rereadability: N/A
Memorability: N/A