Tag Archives: Alex Flinn

Beastly: Lindy’s Diary by Alex Flinn

July 24, 2018Book ReviewAlex Flinn, Easy Reading, Fairy tales, Kendra Chroniclesskyebjenner

Title: Beastly: Lindy’s Diary
Author: Alex Flinn
Series: Kendra Chronicles #1.5
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Fairy tales
Pace: Slow
Format: Novella
Publisher: Harper Teen
Year: 2012
5th sentence, 74th page: Now I did.

See the #1 New York Times bestselling story Beastly through Lindy’s eyes! This is her diary, kept while living in captivity with the beast. Lindy’s Diary captures all the romance and edgy mystery of the original!

Diary,

I am locked away . . . with no one to confide in but you . . . and him. His fur, those claws—they caught me off guard at first, but now I’m noticing something else about him—something deeper. It’s the look in his eye. It tells me he’s got a secret to keep. That’s okay—I’ve got one, too. I think I’m falling in love with him. . . .

Lindy

It’s always fun to reread a story from a different person’s point of view. It just gives a nice, different point of view and lens through which to watch the same actions that you have already watched, and often thought you understood. When it’s a novella that tells the other side of a romance, then it just makes me all the more happier. Lindy’s Diary does this.

I love Beauty and the Beast, whichever version it happens to be. I love the idea of two outcasts finding one another and finding solace in each others’ company. It’s not about Stockholme Syndrome (just had to throw that one out there). And I love the idea that true love is about two souls, not the way that each other looks. But, attraction is a physical thing too. I think that my partner is a gorgeous man. Now that I know him, I know that I would love him regardless. I don’t know if I would have fallen for him regardless of his looks. I don’t know how the process would have happened in the case of Beauty and the Beast. Lindy’s Diary helped to make me understand this. It was also a nice way to see why she held off with saying the magical words.

Sometimes diary formats kind of annoy me – they can be read quite clunkily and just don’t have the flow that I love in well-written prose. I wouldn’t have liked the tale of Beastly written as a diary. It would have made the story a little too time-conscious and the time passages would have felt almost lazy in missing out chunks of time to move the story forward. After all, the tale takes place over a two year time period. But as a brief glimpse into Lindy’s thoughts and feelings, it works really well. It places the actions of Adrian within the context of their year together and helps to show how Lindy falling in love was a slow and gradual progress.

<- Beastly Review

Bewitching Review ->

Image source: Harper Collins Publishers

Beastly by Alex Flinn

July 23, 2018Book ReviewAlex Flinn, Easy Reading, Fairy tales, Kendra Chroniclesskyebjenner

Title: Beastly
Author: Alex Flinn
Series: Kendra Chronicles #1
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Fairy tales
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: Harper Teen
Year: 2007
5th sentence, 74th page: But I’d known it wouldn’t last.

I AM A BEAST.

A beast. Not quite wolf or gorilla or dog, but a horrible new creature with fangs, claws, and hair springing from every pore. I am a walking monster.

You think I’m talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. And I’ll stay this way forever – unless I can break the spell.

Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, the perfect girl, and the perfect life. And then, I’ll tell you how I became perfectly… beastly.

I have loved the movie Beastly for a long time. After all, Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourite fairy tales, (or at the very least, my favourite Disney movies), and I loved this modern-day adaptation of it. Only recently did I read the opening credits and realise that the movie is actually based on a book. So I bought the book. And I really wasn’t disappointed.

This is a simple, easy book. Plain and simple. There isn’t a lot of complexity in it, and it isn’t one that you have to think a lot about hidden meanings. Which is why I loved it. I enjoy high fantasy and complex tales as much as the next girl, but I also love something that is happy, simple and you are guaranteed of a sweet, happy ending. This falls firmly within that category. And which is why I loved it.

One of the things I really enjoyed about this book was the fact that not only was it a modern-day story, but it highlighted this with the use of an internet forum. Before each “part” there was a live chat between different fairy tale characters, the frog, one of the grizzly bears, and the little mermaid all managed to make an appearance. It was quite cleverly and subtly done. And it is this fact that I really enjoyed. After all, retelling a fairy tale has been done many times before. But retelling it with hints of other fairytales, and using the internet and modern technologies as a mechanism through which to do it – well, that was just a seriously fun idea.

<- Beheld Review

Beastly: Lindy’s Diary Review ->

Image source: Book Depository