'The Beast's Heart' Review

I recently read The Beast's Heart, written by Leife Shallcross. I found this book to be interesting, because it’s kind of like Beauty and the Beast meets Cinderella. In this twist of events, the story is in the Beast's point of view, and the house is magical instead of having magical house keepers in inanimate objects.

In this version of the story, Isabeau switches spots with her father. Returning to this, her father gets to go home along with gifts from the Beast.

When Isabeau’s father returns home, he tells her sisters what happened. The three sisters tried to argue with their father to try at least to go back for her. When the father explained that was not possible, the sisters had to learn to accept that. They had a hard time adjusting without Isabeau because she was the one who did all of the cooking, cleaning and other chores around the house. Over time the three sisters learned how to do everything. They divided up the chores between the three of them, so everything would get done.

Over the year, Beast hoped Isabeau would fall in love with him, hoping to break the dreadful spell. Several months into the year Isabeau was been missing her sisters and father. Beast showed her a mirror that allows you to see what you want. She discovered that one of her sisters was getting married. The mirror also showed her how depressed her father was over the fact that Isabeau was willing to trade places with him.

The Beast had agreed to allow her to go home for a week with the promise of coming back on the seventh day.

While home, Isabeau’s eldest sister asked her to not go back, considering Beast set her free. Even if it was for a week, she didn’t think Isabeau should even go back. The sisters were upset at Isabeau for actually wanting to go back with the Beast. Isabeau believed she had kept her promise and gave the Beast a chance. Her sister pointed out that most of their father's depression was from the fact that Isabeau was staying with the Beast. Isabeau's family believed she was fallen for him.

Isabeau had denied these allegations of any feelings for the Beast, and insisted she made a promise and intended to fulfill the promise. At the end of the week, Isabeau had gone back to the castle to fulfill her promise with the Beast.

The Beast was surprised that she came back to fulfill her promise. Beast mentioned to Isabeau that she didn’t need to come back after her week, but Isabeau insisted. After the year had past, of course, Isabeau had fallen in love with the Beast and the spell was broken.

I found this book to be very interesting because it was a twist of Cinderella meets Beauty and the Beast. This version of the story gave me the chance to read from the Beast's point of view, instead of the typical princesses or third person point of view. In that sense you never really get any grasp of what the Beast may be feeling or thinking as the story goes along.

Personally I wish there were more books like this, where it’s the same story but told in a different point of view. Maybe that’s what fan-fiction is? In my opinion I feel like that’s what makes these stories more interesting because now I get to know what the other person is thinking and feeling. As well as the fact of wondering if she is actually going to come back to the Beast. Having that suspense and sadness of seeing her from the Beast's point of view, and seeing maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't go back. It’s nice to be able to know and understand what the other characters are feeling when they get to tell their version of the story.