Beastly Beauty by Jennifer Donnelly

Title: Beastly Beauty

Author: Jennifer Donnelly

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st June 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 336

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: What makes a girl “beastly?” Is it having too much ambition? Being too proud? Taking up too much space? Or is it just wanting something, anything, too badly.

That’s the problem Arabella faces when she makes her debut in society. Her parents want her to be sweet and compliant so she can marry well, but try as she might, Arabella can’t extinguish the fire burning inside her — the source of her deepest wishes, her wildest dreams.

When an attempt to suppress her emotions tragically backfires, a mysterious figure punishes Arabella with a curse, dooming her and everyone she cares about, trapping them in the castle. As the years pass, Arabella abandons hope. The curse is her fault — after all, there’s nothing more “beastly” than a girl who expresses her anger — and the only way to break it is to find a boy who loves her for her true self: a cruel task for a girl who’s been told she’s impossible to love.

When a handsome thief named Beau makes his way into the castle, the captive servants are thrilled, convinced he is the one to break the curse. But Beau — spooked by the castle’s strange and forbidding ladies-in-waiting, and by the malevolent presence that stalks its corridors at night — only wants to escape. He learned long ago that love is only an illusion. If Beau and Arabella have any hope of breaking the curse, they must learn to trust their wounded hearts, and realize that the cruellest prisons of all are the ones we build for ourselves.

~*~

It’s 1785, and there are stories of a beastly curse abounding – and only one can break it, though in almost a century, nobody has ever succeeded. Arabella, a noblewoman and daughter of a duke and duchess is headstrong, and has dreams of improving the world – yet during her debut, there is a tragedy, and she is punished. Arabella and everyone she cares about are trapped in the castle, and Arabella hides a beastly secret, one that nobody alive knows about. And she surrounded by her ladies in waiting: Rafe, Rega, Orrsow, Sadindi, Espidra, Iglut, Hesma, Elge, LaJoyuse, and Romeser, who are always by her side, guided by Lady Espidra – and this has been the way ever since Arabella was punished by a mysterious stranger.

Beau’s arrival heralds a change – and Arabella’s curse could be broken, but are the servants right? Is Beau the one to break the spell, or will the hundred years end and take everyone in the castle with it?

Fairytale retellings have been popular for a while, and continue to be. It seems that Beauty and the Beast is the basis for many of these retellings, and the wonderful thing about this is that it is the kind of story that can be used in a myriad of different ways. In Jennifer Donnelly’s version, she’s gender-swapped the main characters – the girl is the beast, the one who is cursed, and the boy has come to break the spell. And in this instance, he is a thief, who will somehow bring Arabella’s passions and who she really is to the surface. It seems to be Beau’s disregard for rules and titles that draws Arabella to him, to wanting to learn from him and spend time with him – though she must hide her terrible secret – the reason why no other suitors have survived their journey to the castle. Secrets abound with everyone in this story, as they all have a goal, something they want to destroy or achieve, and it seems that there is a force at play that doesn’t want Beau to succeed, that wants to destroy everything.

I got this feeling from one of the ladies-in-waiting, as she was always around and came across as combative, as though she was purely a vehicle to show the lengths that people like this character will go to so that they can get what they want. At the same time, hope and horror are equally represented throughout the book, as the beastly moments feed on Beau and Arabella’s fear, and as Lady Espidra plays a game with a mysterious child who seems innocent – yet it is possible she too has ulterior motives. Overall, Jennifer Donnelly has managed to pull all these elements together to create a thrilling retelling that explores what makes us human – our deepest wishes and dreams, and the forces that can make us give them up or turn to a side of ourselves we don’t like when forced to be someone we’re not – a universal aspect that makes it feel like anyone grappling with secrets and identity can see something of themselves in this story, set in 18^th century France and Spain. Set four years before the French Revolution began, Beastly Beauty also showcases the class differences and the difference that wealth and social care can make – perhaps hinting at Arabella’s attempts to help her community to stave off the inevitable fate that befell many nobles during the revolution. It’s a fitting setting too, as the original Beauty and the Beast fairy tale by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, originally written in 1740 was from the French salons, and I think works well in the setting. It suited the characters and meant that Beau’s journey from Spain was possible, and maintained the connection to its origins whilst having something fresh and inventive about it, and the existence of the beast in the story.

The malevolent presence is always there, hanging over the characters – and Beau longs to escape, and this felt claustrophobic at times. It felt like the reader could be trapped with him, because the majority of the action takes place in the cold castle that feels drained of humanity and life, and this made the novel work well, giving readers a sense of what it can be like to be trapped somewhere you don’t want to be.

The complexities of this novel mean its secrets reveal themselves slowly across many chapters, and dips into the past sometimes, to help gain an understanding of the events that led Arabella to this point in her life. Seeing her with dreams and driven to do something more shows a kind side of her, and this is what helps make her who she is – or at least, part of who she is, as she needs to learn a few lessons about love and emotions and how to use them to help herself, rather than letting them control her, as they seem to do throughout much of the book. And with a few clever tricks to help Beau work out what is going on, the characters in this book are all complex, and there was a sense that I knew whose side I wanted to be on, and who was causing the issues – who wanted things to go another way. But as this is a fairytale retelling, everything hints at a happy ending.

This is a book that is complex and enjoyable, and one that I think those who like fairytale retellings will get a lot out of.