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Hunting the Beast*

Not the Best Retelling of Classic Tale

I am a sucker for retellings of fairy tales, and I particularly love the story of Beauty and the Beast. I fell in love with it when Disney came out with a cartoon movie in the last millennium. So I was anticipating this version of it, but unfortunately, I found it sadly lacking. The author gave Belle some potential strengths, but they weren’t really used. The character development that we see in the original fairytale was not truly seen here. Especially Drake, the Beast, as he came across as a cardboard character and certainly not one who grew and evolved. I felt the language in this book, too, was a bit strange. The language was very simplified, as if the book is meant to be a middle-grade story. I found that tedious to read. Some word choices for dialogue, too, seem far too modern. The book feels like it takes place in a fake medieval fantasy time, so modern terms feel out of place and are actually quite jarring when read. The level of the dialogue, too, seemed simplistic and childlike, not like real people talk. This story just missed the mark for me, which is too bad as I thought the premise had promise.

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