Beastly Beauty 12+

About this book

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 cruelest prisons of all are the ones we build for ourselves.

Reviews

Praise for Stepsister:

*"The gorgeous prose and the fairy-tale themes have obvious appeal, but the real strengths here are the depth of character across the board; the examination of the cost of beauty in a world that reveres it; and Isabelle herself, a shattered but not unreedemable girl with a warrior's heart." -- Booklist, starred review

"A breathlessly exciting and utterly satisfying fairy tale." -- Kirkus Reviews

"This is another needed voice exposing cultural myths that suffocate girls in the name of likability and pit them against one another in the name of beauty." -- The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Praise for Poisoned:

"An empowering and action-packed feminist retelling that will be popular with fantasy and fairy tale-loving teens." -- School Library Journal

"[Sophie's] is a journey of self-discovery and empowerment, wrapped up in a thrilling fantasy adventure." -- The Guardian

"Donnelly thoughtfully and critically unwinds the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves... With adept prose, Donnelly twists the familiar story until it bursts, artfully examining the forces that motivate us... A finale hints that more variations on this theme are to come, and readers will welcome them." -- Booklist

"A good accompaniment to Donnelly's own Stepsister and Haydu's Ever Cursed." -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"Lush prose depicts a vaguely Germanic fantasy landscape populated with intriguing legends and creepy horrors." -- Kirkus Reviews