Beauty, Robin McKinley
Beauty, Robin McKinley
9 Rating(s)
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Beauty
A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

Author: Robin McKinley

Narrator: Charlotte Parry

Unabridged: 7 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 04/19/2013


Synopsis

The New York Times–bestselling author of Rose Daughter reimagines the classic French fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast.

I was the youngest of three daughters. Our literal-minded mother named us Grace, Hope, and Honour. … My father still likes to tell the story of how I acquired my odd nickname: I had come to him for further information when I first discovered that our names meant something besides you-come-here. He succeeded in explaining grace and hope, but he had some difficulty trying to make the concept of honour understandable to a five-year-old. … I said: ‘Huh! I’d rather be Beauty.’ …

By the time it was evident that I was going to let the family down by being plain, I’d been called Beauty for over six years. … I wasn’t really very fond of my given name, Honour, either … as if ‘honourable’ were the best that could be said of me.

The sisters’ wealthy father loses all his money when his merchant fleet is drowned in a storm, and the family moves to a village far away. Then the old merchant hears what proves to be a false report that one of his ships had made it safe to harbor at last, and on his sad, disappointed way home again he becomes lost deep in the forest and has a terrifying encounter with a fierce Beast, who walks like a man and lives in a castle. The merchant’s life is forfeit, says the Beast, for trespass and the theft of a rose—but he will spare the old man’s life if he sends one of his daughters: “Your daughter would take no harm from me, nor from anything that lives in my lands.” When Beauty hears this story—for her father had picked therose to bring to her—her sense of honor demands that she take up the Beast’s offer, for “cannot a Beast be tamed?”

This “splendid story” by the Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown has been named an ALA Notable Book and a Phoenix Award Honor Book (Publishers Weekly).

About Robin McKinley

Robin McKinley has won various awards and citations for her writing, including the Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown, a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for Sunshine. Her other books include the New York Times bestseller Spindle's End; two novel-length retellings of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Beauty and Rose Daughter; Deerskin, another novel-length fairy-tale retelling, of Charles Perrault's Donkeyskin; and a retelling of the Robin Hood legend, The Outlaws of Sherwood.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kat Kennedy on July 15, 2015

I curse this book with a thousand crotch louse. It's not I didn't like this book. At least, I like the beginning for awhile. But this book's plot was enough to drive me into a rant. Getting out of the way the fact that the characterisation is great and the setting is stunning and all that shit, let'......more

Goodreads review by karen on July 07, 2018

fairy tale retellings are fascinating - i went through a datlow-phase years ago, and i have read many others outside of her collections - it is a comfortable pleasure for me. so, since i am now going on an "introduce myself to the fantasy genre" expedition, this book seemed like the most logical ent......more

Goodreads review by Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ on November 18, 2019

$1.99 Kindle sale, Nov. 18, 2019. This is a cozy, delightful retelling of The Beauty and the Beast tale, one of my very favorite fairy tale retellings and comfort reads. Update: I've just read Beauty again for the first time in 15 years or more, but I probably read this 5 or 6 times when I was in my......more

Goodreads review by Robin on June 02, 2017

This is absolutely my favorite retelling of the familiar tale of Beauty and the Beast. An aside: it far outshines the Disney one. McKinley begins the tale with the very familiar setting: A merchant with daughters has fallen on hard times. He and his family are reduced to living in near poverty. But t......more

Goodreads review by ☘Misericordia☘ on January 01, 2021

Q: Our literal-minded mother named us Grace, Hope, and Honour, but few people except I perhaps the minister who had baptized all three of us remembered my given name. (c) Q: Hope named her Mercy, after our sister who had died, although I privately thought that our family already had more than enough vi......more