Critique: I think this premise that the gender-swapped beast needs to learn to love herself to break the curse is awesome. That’s super cool. I support that. I love that concept. I love the idea that you have to be able to embrace bad emotions in life as well as good because "bad" emotions can help you (e.g., being angry can spur you stop injustice). But omg the EXECUTION!!!
1) The premise as executed feels SO victim-blamey. At the end, Death literally tells Arabella that she cursed herself because she succumbed to despair. Which is not a great message IMO. The despair she feels isn’t exactly the same as clinical depression, but they’re close enough that it feels uncomfortable.
2) And if not succumb to despair, what exactly was she supposed to do as a GIRL IN THE 1700s?? It’s not like 18-year-old girls had a lot of power back then!! She herself says that she should have pawned her jewels and run away with her books to be an architect, but that doesn’t seem like a super viable solution! And even if it were, that still takes us back to victim-blaming.
3) The world-building makes no sense. I knew that might be the case going into it because I’ve read one of the author’s other fairy tale retellings before and that just seems to be her thing, but it was very egregious here. There’s no explanation for where Espidra/Despair comes from. She’s called a demon, but that’s all we know about her. We don’t know where Hope, Faith, and Love come from. They don’t disappear at the end when all her negative emotions do. We don’t know why Death is just hanging around the duchy when Espidra/Despair arrives. There’s no explanation for any of it!!
4) Death says that Arabella cursed herself, but Espidra actually curses her. It’s contradictory. You could argue that Arabella metaphorically cursed herself by succumbing to despair and thus unintentionally summoning the demon, but some actual explicit world-building would be nice! And while I could buy Arabella inadvertently cursing herself to become a beast because she hates herself so much, she never would’ve turned everyone else into clockwork figures. It makes no sense! And is victim-blamey!
5) For the first 2/3 of the book, beast Arabella acts like a psychotic monster trying to kill Hope, Faith, and Beau. Then Shakespeare quotes happen, and it turns out that surprise, she can talk while she’s a beast and actually does have her faculties some of the time! And it’s a lovely, great scene between the two of them! But how about some consistency?! Some (any) explanation as to what makes her sentient some of the time and a senseless monster the rest? Also, there’s at least one scene that heavily implies she’ll miss becoming the beast because of the freedom it gives her to run, be powerful, be unconfined, etc. But then toward the end, she’s like, “[I’m afraid] of the beast. It feels like she's coming. Like I'll never escape her. Like she'll tear me apart.” THE INCONSISTENCY.
6) The insta-love. They fall in love in like a week? Maybe a few weeks but only like two scenes? It’s ridiculous, especially for a B&tB retelling.
7) The breaking of the curse at the end omg: a) This girl has been trapped for a CENTURY in this castle, and then at the last minute, Beau and Death are like, “love yourself,” and voila, she accepts her “bad” emotions” and breaks the curse. This book seems to be marketed as a feminist retelling (e.g., with the tag line, “you can’t silence a girl who needs to roar”), but it doesn’t feel very feminist for the boy to be the one to tell her to love herself. b) Death just TELLS her to love herself?? He couldn’t have done that A HUNDRED YEARS AGO?? It would’ve been such a more satisfying story/message if Arabella had learned to love herself while rediscovering her love of architecture. She could have inadvertently embraced one of her “bad” emotions (ladies-in-waiting) earlier in the story and then eventually realized she needed to make peace with all of them to break the curse. But nooo, we have this deus ex machina ending where Death just TELLS her what to do.
8) Her mother is SO terrible, but at the end, she’s like, “I thought I was doing what was best for you, can you ever forgive me,” and Arabella says she already has. And I like a happy ending, but it just feels so OOC and unearned!
9) The book is YA, and I think it works fine for YA, but I also think it could’ve been a much darker (probably better) adult retelling. The curse itself is genuinely horrifying (losing your mind every night and becoming a beast; people trapped as clockwork figures, possibly while still sentient; one of the servants is a mother whose TODDLER is a clockwork figure for ONE HUNDRED YEARS), and it feels like the book kept starting to lean into the horror aspect and then pulling back, maybe because it was YA. Also, it feels like Beau super liked beast Arabella, and that certainly could’ve been explored more in adult lol.
8)a: Another thing about it being YA is that she is, in fact, technically a child (even if 18 was really an adult for the time), and that’s emphasized by the fact that all the adult figures keep calling her “my child” (her mother, Espidra, and Death), and it’s just really gross that a CHILD was CURSED BECAUSE HER PARENTS BULLIED HER INTO SUPPRESSING HER EMOTIONS.
As I write this, I’m realizing that some of these storytelling problems maybe could’ve been solved if the book were published as adult fantasy and she could’ve been an adult with actual agency in the beginning…
10) Going back to the world-building, Espidra is there the full hundred years, and in the present-day, Arabella relies on her and looks to her for reassurance and guidance, even though she’s miserable about it. We the readers really deserved an explanation for that because ESPIDRA’S THE ONE WHO CURSED HER AND EVERYONE ELSE. You'd think that at least one of the servants would’ve tried to kill her, in the hopes that would break the curse, and I’d assume there’d be a reason it couldn’t work, like demons are unkillable or something, but do we ever get such an explanation? Nope. It’s frustrating to see Arabella turn to her abuser for comfort, and while I know that absolutely happens in real life, it feels very jarring in this book where we don’t get any insight into how that relationship evolved. You could extrapolate that Arabella is used to craving approval from people who abuse her because her parents were so awful, but I, the reader, should not have to fill in those holes (or at least not so many holes!!).
no subject
1) The premise as executed feels SO victim-blamey. At the end, Death literally tells Arabella that she cursed herself because she succumbed to despair. Which is not a great message IMO. The despair she feels isn’t exactly the same as clinical depression, but they’re close enough that it feels uncomfortable.
2) And if not succumb to despair, what exactly was she supposed to do as a GIRL IN THE 1700s?? It’s not like 18-year-old girls had a lot of power back then!! She herself says that she should have pawned her jewels and run away with her books to be an architect, but that doesn’t seem like a super viable solution! And even if it were, that still takes us back to victim-blaming.
3) The world-building makes no sense. I knew that might be the case going into it because I’ve read one of the author’s other fairy tale retellings before and that just seems to be her thing, but it was very egregious here. There’s no explanation for where Espidra/Despair comes from. She’s called a demon, but that’s all we know about her. We don’t know where Hope, Faith, and Love come from. They don’t disappear at the end when all her negative emotions do. We don’t know why Death is just hanging around the duchy when Espidra/Despair arrives. There’s no explanation for any of it!!
4) Death says that Arabella cursed herself, but Espidra actually curses her. It’s contradictory. You could argue that Arabella metaphorically cursed herself by succumbing to despair and thus unintentionally summoning the demon, but some actual explicit world-building would be nice! And while I could buy Arabella inadvertently cursing herself to become a beast because she hates herself so much, she never would’ve turned everyone else into clockwork figures. It makes no sense! And is victim-blamey!
5) For the first 2/3 of the book, beast Arabella acts like a psychotic monster trying to kill Hope, Faith, and Beau. Then Shakespeare quotes happen, and it turns out that surprise, she can talk while she’s a beast and actually does have her faculties some of the time! And it’s a lovely, great scene between the two of them! But how about some consistency?! Some (any) explanation as to what makes her sentient some of the time and a senseless monster the rest? Also, there’s at least one scene that heavily implies she’ll miss becoming the beast because of the freedom it gives her to run, be powerful, be unconfined, etc. But then toward the end, she’s like, “[I’m afraid] of the beast. It feels like she's coming. Like I'll never escape her. Like she'll tear me apart.” THE INCONSISTENCY.
6) The insta-love. They fall in love in like a week? Maybe a few weeks but only like two scenes? It’s ridiculous, especially for a B&tB retelling.
7) The breaking of the curse at the end omg:
a) This girl has been trapped for a CENTURY in this castle, and then at the last minute, Beau and Death are like, “love yourself,” and voila, she accepts her “bad” emotions” and breaks the curse. This book seems to be marketed as a feminist retelling (e.g., with the tag line, “you can’t silence a girl who needs to roar”), but it doesn’t feel very feminist for the boy to be the one to tell her to love herself.
b) Death just TELLS her to love herself?? He couldn’t have done that A HUNDRED YEARS AGO??
It would’ve been such a more satisfying story/message if Arabella had learned to love herself while rediscovering her love of architecture. She could have inadvertently embraced one of her “bad” emotions (ladies-in-waiting) earlier in the story and then eventually realized she needed to make peace with all of them to break the curse. But nooo, we have this deus ex machina ending where Death just TELLS her what to do.
8) Her mother is SO terrible, but at the end, she’s like, “I thought I was doing what was best for you, can you ever forgive me,” and Arabella says she already has. And I like a happy ending, but it just feels so OOC and unearned!
9) The book is YA, and I think it works fine for YA, but I also think it could’ve been a much darker (probably better) adult retelling. The curse itself is genuinely horrifying (losing your mind every night and becoming a beast; people trapped as clockwork figures, possibly while still sentient; one of the servants is a mother whose TODDLER is a clockwork figure for ONE HUNDRED YEARS), and it feels like the book kept starting to lean into the horror aspect and then pulling back, maybe because it was YA. Also, it feels like Beau super liked beast Arabella, and that certainly could’ve been explored more in adult lol.
8)a: Another thing about it being YA is that she is, in fact, technically a child (even if 18 was really an adult for the time), and that’s emphasized by the fact that all the adult figures keep calling her “my child” (her mother, Espidra, and Death), and it’s just really gross that a CHILD was CURSED BECAUSE HER PARENTS BULLIED HER INTO SUPPRESSING HER EMOTIONS.
As I write this, I’m realizing that some of these storytelling problems maybe could’ve been solved if the book were published as adult fantasy and she could’ve been an adult with actual agency in the beginning…
10) Going back to the world-building, Espidra is there the full hundred years, and in the present-day, Arabella relies on her and looks to her for reassurance and guidance, even though she’s miserable about it. We the readers really deserved an explanation for that because ESPIDRA’S THE ONE WHO CURSED HER AND EVERYONE ELSE. You'd think that at least one of the servants would’ve tried to kill her, in the hopes that would break the curse, and I’d assume there’d be a reason it couldn’t work, like demons are unkillable or something, but do we ever get such an explanation? Nope. It’s frustrating to see Arabella turn to her abuser for comfort, and while I know that absolutely happens in real life, it feels very jarring in this book where we don’t get any insight into how that relationship evolved. You could extrapolate that Arabella is used to craving approval from people who abuse her because her parents were so awful, but I, the reader, should not have to fill in those holes (or at least not so many holes!!).