Book Review: Beauty by Robin McKinley
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Beauty : A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
by Robin McKinley
A Beautiful Tale
I love this book. It is perhaps one of the best renditions of Beauty and the Beast, and I like it even more than the well-known fairy tale. The skeleton of the story is widely familiar but McKinley lets her creativity flow through the writing and creates a totally original telling of the tale.
Honour is not your classic so-weak-that-the-guy-has-to-do-everything damsel in distress. She is spunky, intelligent and real! The character develops into a complete, realistic person through the story, and so does the beast. Clearly one who loves fairy tales as well, McKinley tells the tale with grace, charm and enchantment, that not only gives depth to the story, but makes it real in our minds. You don't get a goody-good, beautiful, flawless Beauty, but rather, one whose nickname mocks her appearance (compared to her sisters) and whose character has flaws, like any other person in real life. The love story unfolds with a plot that wrenches your emotions through the unfortunate situations and have you tearing with joy at the happy ones.
Unlike many other authors, who tend to inject too much violence or sex into fairy tales to make them the "adult" version, Beauty is a remarkable tale written with originality and maturity. This book is the definitive of how fairy tales for adults should be like. Well-rounded, well-written and complete.
Read it. -
Just curious, where do you usually gets your books from?
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i usually buy them.. either from borders, or San bookshop (at Suntec)... others that are not easily found, I order them from www.acmabooks.com and www.amazon.comOriginally posted by DeadPoet:Just curious, where do you usually gets your books from?
in fact, the reviews I posted so far were the same reviews i wrote and posted on Amazon.com...