46. Beastly - Alex Flinn

HarperTeen, 2007
$8.99
300 pages
Rating: I did enjoy this story, more than I thought I would.....4/5

Alex Flinn's version of Beauty and the Beast is a page turner. I saw a trailer for the movie as a preview a few weeks ago, it looked quite good, so decided to read the book before the movie hits the big screen in July. Now, with a bit of research, I see that it has been delayed until next March. Bummer. The summer movies...at least so far....have not interested me very much.

Kyle Kingsbury is spoiled, gorgeous, self-centered, and has a wild mean streak. He gets everything handed to him by his father. Everything except his father's care, love, and attention. The dad's a well known, handsome, workaholic news anchor in NYC. So Kyle is pretty much on his own, and not a nice guy. Of course, it's his father's attention that he craves more than anything.

When he pulls a prank on a fellow high school student, asking her to the prom when he doesn't intend to follow through, he discovers that she's a witch and she turns him into a beast. An ugly, clawed and fanged, furry creature. His life suddenly takes a nose dive.

SPOILERS AHEAD: His father sets him up in his own five-story home in Brooklyn, knowing that he cannot show his face outside the realms of this house. And slowly Kyle, with the help of a caring, blind, live-in tutor and his non-judgmental housekeeper/cook, changes. He becomes a reader, and a gardener, growing lovely roses of every color and type. And then, a drug-addict thief changes everything for him....for the good, believe it or not. For he is willing to give over his daughter in exchange for freedom.

Happy ending, of course, as most of us know some version of the story. But how it all comes together is great fun. Lots of lessons here, about beauty and what is really important. Very different from the other books of Alex Flinn that I've read.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the movie, which will have Vanessa Hudgens, Neil Patrick Harris, and a creative makeup job, sans fur, for Kyle the beast, who will be played by Alex Pettyfer. But we'll have to wait until March 18th to see it. Bummer.