Beastly by Alex Flinn

Beastly

By Alex Flinn

Publisher: HarperTeen, 2007

200 pages, paperback

Date Finished: 23/5/2011

Genres: young Adult, Fantasy, Coming of Age, Some Action

I am a beast.

A beast!

Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog but a horrible new creature who walks upright. I am a monster.

You think I'm talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It's no deformity, no disease. And I'll, stay this way forever ruined unless I can break the spell.

Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I'll tell you. I'll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and the perfect life. And then, I'll tell you how I became perfectly...beastly.
~from goodreads.com~

~First Line: "Welcome to the first meeting of the Unexpected Changes chat group."
~Last Line: " 'May I have this dance?' "

Review: The first and foremost reason that I wanted to read this book was because of the movie hype. If the movie is anything like the book, I will love the film!


Our main character, Kyle Kingsbury, is rich, popular, good-looking. Everything a kid could hope for. He also has one of those snotty attitudes, and because of this, a witch turns into, well, a beast. The only way  for him to be turned back into his handsome self is for him to find true love and be kissed by her. For Kyle Kingsbury, this wasn't an easy-as-pie task that could be solved with daddy's money.


I loved how when his looks changed, he changed his name as well. Adrian is a good name. It fit for him once he changed his wats. It was weird but interesting to read about someone that was locked away from the rest of human life. Although, in modern-day New York City, you can't exactly go out in public looking like a beast and expect people to keep their cool.

Kyle -- Adrian -- met some really awesome people while he was locked away. Well, actually he only met two people: one that lived with him as a tutor, and the other was sort of brought there against their will. But the person still contributed a LOT to the story!

I am super-anxious to see the movie now! Sadly, I'll hav eto wait till it comes out on DVD. But that's fine. More time to read Cloaked. :)

Stardust - Book Review

Book: Stardust

Author: Neil Gaiman

Publisher: HarperTeen

Pages: 333

Read: 4/05/2010

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy Fiction

Reviewed By: Elyssa

*For The L♥ve of Reading group voted Stardust to be the first group read.*

Neil Gaiman's words spins together a unique world that many people should not miss. There are pirates who fish for lightning bolts, unicorns, evil witches, helpful hairy men, trees that talk, and many other new world phenomenon that will keep you flipping pages. It is good to escape every once in a while. Neil's simple prose allows you to do just that very easily. Brilliant.

Dunstan's mischievous rump during market time results in a small bundle being pushed through the broken wall with a small name pinned to it.... Tristan Thorn.

Young Tristan is an odd lad who wants nothing more then to woo his true love Victoria Forester. In his quest for her lips he offers her everything under the sun. Still a proper lady she declines his offers. However, shortly he will be on a quest for a most unusual object to win his lady loves kiss and hopefully her hand in marriage.

Tristan says farewell to his family in Wall and starts on his journey in Faerie after his beloveds request, the fallen star.

Young feet and a love sick heart fuels Tristan's journey throughout Faerie laced with a bit of good luck. He finds his fallen star, except this star is not what he thought he would find. It was not a rock but yet a beautiful young lady. This odd duo disagreed with each other, the star did not want to go with Tristan to be an object for his love and of course that is all he wanted. Lets just say she did not make his life easy.

This book is not all mushy love quest but it has a very interesting sub plot that intertwines pretty nicely. The sons of Lord Stormhold were sent out on a quest to retrieve a family amulet. Several of the sons are already dead but they are hanging around as ghosts. The sons that are alive are trying to kill each other off in attempt to grab ahold of the family throne.

From start to finish Tristan's quest is anything but bland.

This book has also been turned into a fantastic movie, which doesn't happen often. I did watch the movie a very long time ago. I was sure that I didn't remember most of the movie except for Michelle Pheifer looking really grotesque. But as I read the book the images of the movie came flooding into my head. Most often that is exactly why a reader likes to read the book before watching the movie. But I have to say the movie images did not hinder this book in anyway. I might just have to go and burrow the movie again.

Rating: 4 Kisses

Quotes:

"I would not wish to marry someone who had already been married. It would be,' she opined, 'like having someone else break in one's own pony."

"The manly heroes of the penny dreadfuls and shilling novels never had these problems getting kissed."

"Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel."