A review by shanyreader
Beast by Donna Jo Napoli

3.0

What I like best about Beauty and the Beast retellings, is the actual love that Beauty and the Beast develop slowly with each other. I love watching them fall in love. This book however, has Beauty coming in with a mere 50 pages left in the book. It seemed like the romance would be rushed...and in my opinion, it was. It's not that I didn't like the book--I loved how the Beast was a Muslim and he was very religious, since I love reading about religion. It was something I had never heard of before. The thing that really got me, was that he turned into an actual lion. Not even an anthropomorphic lion, where you could see semblance of humanity. Nope, he's an actual lion who hunts like a lion, mates with other lionesses, while retaining him human mind. It was very disturbing to think about all the things he did as a lion and relate it to the human he was. I also found that Belle seemed almost shallow in this book, in my opinion with only a moment or two of bonding.
It's not my favorite retelling, but I'm not condemning it because it's rich with culture, teaches me about lions, and it was a sweet (rushed) ending.