In this modern retelling of the fairy tale beauty and the beast, Kyle Kingsbury has all he would ever want; he’s strikingly handsome, tall with blond hair and blue eyes. His father, a wealthy and well-known anchorman, seems to be the main contributor to Kyle’s fatal flaw: he is very conceited and takes pleasure in hurting people that are less fortunate as he is. In short, he is a bully.

The author, Alex Flinn, did a great job at modernizing the old tale to fit today’s teens. She takes things like the reason Kyle was cursed in the original story- shunning a beggar woman on a cold night – and changes it to fit a teenage lifestyle. In Beastly, Kyle is cursed because an odd girl at school scorned him and others for voting for homecoming court based off of looks. In retaliation for what she said, he asked her to be his date to the homecoming, only he planned to show up at the dance with another girl and laugh at her reaction.

One aspect of the book that I did not enjoy was that it was predictable. I think this was because  I am already familiar to the tale of Beauty and the Beast and there is only so much that an author can change while staying true to the tale.

This book was heartwarming and a nice twist to a classic tale. I give Beastly 4 out of five stars.