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A review by missbookiverse
Beast by Ally Kennen
4.0
What first caught my eye was the book cover. It looks really cool and it feels even better - like reptile skin. I love little extras like these that add to the atmosphere of the book.
The story was told through Stephen's point of view and Ally Kennen managed very well to give him the voice a 17 year old outcast kid would have. It felt nice to be in his head because he had this certain sense of humour and a nice, short way of expressing himself.
My empathy for him developed quickly. When he was accused for setting fire to those houses I wanted to scream at the police and his social worker, they got me that angry. It was a little hard to take that Stephen hardly reacted but he definitely had good reasons not to.
I loved how most of the characters developed throughout the book. Carol turning from evil to nice. I guess she actually fell in love with Stephen a little but I like how there wasn't mentioned much about it, except for really subtle things like holding hands in dangerous situations.
The step by step mentioning of Stephen's past, his family and especially his brother really added depth to his character in my opinion, it developed in a perfect pace.
When the beast wasn't properly described in the first few chapters I thought it'd be something more amazing than a giant crocodile. In my mind a vague shape of a dinosaur or some other kind of monster had formed. It's okay that it actually just was a huge crocodile but it could've been clearer from the start, would've erased some annoying shadowy shapes from my imagination.
Throughout the book I expected the beast to actually turn out to be a friendly pet. Every time it came running at Stephen I expected it to lick his hand innocently and cuddle its head against him. I was a bit disappointed this never happened but at least it didn't eat Stephen when it had the chance to do so.
The book had a good ending and it made me really happy that the beast (or Malackie) didn't have to die.
The story was told through Stephen's point of view and Ally Kennen managed very well to give him the voice a 17 year old outcast kid would have. It felt nice to be in his head because he had this certain sense of humour and a nice, short way of expressing himself.
My empathy for him developed quickly. When he was accused for setting fire to those houses I wanted to scream at the police and his social worker, they got me that angry. It was a little hard to take that Stephen hardly reacted but he definitely had good reasons not to.
I loved how most of the characters developed throughout the book. Carol turning from evil to nice. I guess she actually fell in love with Stephen a little but I like how there wasn't mentioned much about it, except for really subtle things like holding hands in dangerous situations.
The step by step mentioning of Stephen's past, his family and especially his brother really added depth to his character in my opinion, it developed in a perfect pace.
When the beast wasn't properly described in the first few chapters I thought it'd be something more amazing than a giant crocodile. In my mind a vague shape of a dinosaur or some other kind of monster had formed. It's okay that it actually just was a huge crocodile but it could've been clearer from the start, would've erased some annoying shadowy shapes from my imagination.
Throughout the book I expected the beast to actually turn out to be a friendly pet. Every time it came running at Stephen I expected it to lick his hand innocently and cuddle its head against him. I was a bit disappointed this never happened but at least it didn't eat Stephen when it had the chance to do so.
The book had a good ending and it made me really happy that the beast (or Malackie) didn't have to die.