By Cynthia Ayala
Calling all Beauty and the Beast fans! The trailer dropped today on Good Morning America for Disney’s upcoming live-action adaptation of their classic animated beauty, Beauty and the Beast. The film, set to release March 17, 2017, and stars Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as the Beast, and Luke Evans as Gaston.
If you haven’t already, check out the trailer right here:
Wasn’t it just divine? The music from the original was perfect and I personally love that they incorporated it into the film. Also capturing the passage of time, for me at least, was very hypnotizing. I’m already in love with the movie.
Anyway, here is a list of the top five Beauty and the Beast retellings must-reads before the film comes out. There’s plenty of time to read these five in the next ten months.
By Alex Flinn
Beastly by Alex Flinn has already been made into a movie. Personally, I liked it, the cast had chemistry and the story was a solid story. I also don’t know why many critics had an issue with Mary-Kate Olsen’s character and the way she dressed. In a high school setting, it all worked. I feel like the critics may have missed the point of her character. Just look at Disney, she was a hag before she was a beautiful fairy. In high school, being the outcast Goth is pretty much the equivalent. It’s supposed to be a teaching lesson.
The novel though is very different from the film. The foundation is the same, but some of the characters were changed to fit the bill of the movie. This novel is very much like the original fairy tale, it’s just a modern take on the story. The obnoxious pretty boy turns into a beast and then the beauty, Lindy, is forced into his protection. It’s a good read and I personally loved it.
2. Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe #1)
What a twist on the story telling. This story follows Nyx who was betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom, Ignifex, yby the foolishness of her father. But her plan is to go through with the wedding, to abandon her life, and kill the beast. Ignifex is a considered a monster by his actions, but maybe there is a cause to the madness as Nyx soon discovers as she begins to fall in love with the king. With her heart split in two, Nyx must discover what is more important to her, her kingdom or her king. Fate and love are fickle things.
3. A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1)
In this novel, Maas is blending the story of Beauty and the Beast with faerie lore, which makes sense since it is a fairy that curses the original beast…or the devil in the case of the Grimm fairy tale version. Feyre is a young huntress who kills a wolf in the woods that belong to Beast, known as Tamlin in this novel. Now, trapped in his estate Feyre’s hatred soon turns to passion and with a danger arising in the world of the Fae, Feyre must find a way to save the Beast she loves and his people.
By Stacey Jay
Princess Isra is blind and her only duty in life was to be sacrificed for her city’s vitality. Outside her cty lies Gem, a mutant who fights for his deformed people, called the Monstrous. When Gem becomes Isra’s prisoner, Isra soon comes to care for him, beginning to question everything she was brought up to believe in. Together they will change their world, but at what cost?
5. Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2)
This is the second novel in the The Lunar Chronicles series that started off with Cinder. Looking at the cover, it looks like Little Red Riding Hood, and it is, but it’s much more than that. Meyer was able to weave together two fairy tales together and allowed both of them to shine in this novel. No one can read this novel and not think that the relationship between Wolf and Scarlet isn’t a tale of Beauty and the Beast. By the end, the writing echoes that of Beauty and the Beast than it does Little Red Riding Hood, which isn’t a bad thing, it only highlights the evolution of the story and the relationship between the characters.
If you have a suggestion for another novel or an opinion on this one, leave a comment below. Happy reading!