I had been questioning if I would even enjoy this book, due to putting it off for so long I believed it would seem childish and boring to me. This was not at all the case. The story is so unlike the original, so entirely unique, it's amazingly thought through.

I picked this book because it was the highest rated of this series and Beauty and the Beast is one of my faves. This story is similar to canon, though definitely diverges and heads towards an alternate ending. It was way too long; four hours in, I realized that the book was four hours too long. A major focus of the story was Belle learning about how complicated her mother was, but I didn’t feel like any of the other characters had greater depth than the original movie gives. The past storyline was interesting. Check the trigger warnings because there’s some dark stuff going on. Overall, I am not sure I enjoyed the reading of this book, and I don’t see myself reading the others unless they are much shorter.

Well this was a fun time. The romance was definitely the weakest part of this retelling, mostly because it is just so fast-paced that there really isn't a ton of time for Belle and Beast to grow to love each other. The beginnings of something cute is there, but it's not a deep romance. Where this book shines is the portrayal of Belle's mother as the enchantress. I almost would have liked for the book to start somewhere around the time Belle comes to the castle, no prologue, then move to all the exciting action bits, and then have the last third or so be about Belle learning to be around her mother that she isn't sure she exactly likes as a person as she falls more in love with Beast. The book just comes into its own when it does its own thing and breaks away from the Disney movie, and I wish Braswell had had more space to do that. 

It does lean on the "fantasy creatures as an allegory for real marginalized people," which isn't a trope I love. I don't know, other than these complaints, I had fun while reading it.