Kathleen P. (kathleenmaciver) reviewed on 4/22/2008 + 16 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 7

This is one of my favorite "comfort reads." I don't know if this re-telling of Beauty and the Beast is supposed to be Young Adult or not, (I am 31.)... all I know is that there's something special about the journey I take with Beauty when I sit down and read Robin McKinley's version of her story.

I always fall in love with Beauty, her family, and the world they live in â" right from the beginning of the story. I love meeting Beauty's sisters, Hope and Grace. I love hearing Beauty tell how she ended up being nicknamed Beauty, instead of using her given name, Honour⦠even though she was a bookworm who had not inherited the same tall, willowy beauty that her sisters have. I become one of the family with them, sharing their grief as Grace's fiancÃÆ'é is lost to the sea, sharing their despair as their father's fortune is lost as well, and sharing their determination to be happy in their new poorer life in the far magic-tainted North with Hope's new husband.

And then the magic roses start to grow along the wall of the house nearest the forest, and their father gets lost in a storm and comes home with a hopeless story and a single perfect roseâ¦

Beauty's time in the castle with the Beast is an ever-changing exploration of a realm she didn't know existed, and Robin McKinley's gentle portrayal of it is exquisitely fascinating. I love how Beauty's days in the castle with the Beast rarely change⦠yet the story keeps evolving in a way that draws me ever further into it, so that I am learning, along with Beauty, to allow my heart to trust⦠to see the colors that flavor that fourth dimension that the castle seems to have⦠to hear the voices in the Breeze that acts as Beauty's maid⦠to listen as those voices chat about the mysterious tragedy of the castle⦠to learn that the Beast is not what he seems. By the time Beauty understands the mystery, my sight and hearing are clearer along with hers, and I am pleased to read that she finally knows her heart. I am never surprised that as her heart and mind have grown, so has her body and her spirit. How satisfying it is to see that both of her names now fit her so accurately! For she is both Honour, and Beauty now.

This truly is a beautiful story, beautifully told.

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