Beauty Reborn by Elizabeth Lowham

Beauty Reborn falls into one of my favorite genres... Fairytale retellings. This particular one is a Beauty and the Beast retelling. The book begins with Beauty's family having lost their fortune and being forced to sell their estate and all their belongings and move into a hovel. When Beauty's father steals a golden rose from a castle he returns home to bid his 4 children goodbye. The price for his theft is his life. On a dangerous whim, Beauty takes the charm that was meant to magically return her father to the castle. But when she arrives to take his place, the castle is empty. She goes through the castle looking for the hideous beast that demanded a life's debt, but all she finds is the magic of the castle as it attempts to make her comfortable. Eventually she "meets" the beast, however, every time she tries to steal a glance at him, he vanishes without a trace. Soon she falls into a comfortable pattern of existence,  even going so far as to spend her days in the library reading to the beast. However, when the beast continues to ask her to marry him, dark secrets from her past are brought to light.
As far as I understand, this is Elizabeth Lowham's first book. While there were definitely moments where that was very evident, overall I really enjoyed this book. I’m a sucker for any fairytale retelling, but my bread and butter really is Beauty and the Beast. I don’t know what it is about the story, but it resonates with me and it always has. Lowham does a good job of adding her own touch to the story that made it feel just that little bit different from other versions I’ve read. Though on a fun side note, I felt a lot of A Court of Thorns and Roses undercurrents peppered throughout this version.

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I did appreciate the fact that Beauty in this story has a slight edge to her that makes her subtly different from other renditions of her that I’ve read or watched. The entire reason she takes her father’s place in the first place isn’t just to rescue him from the beast’s wrath, but because she wanted an escape. From the struggles of her life but also life itself. It added a humanistic element to Beauty that we don’t always get to see. I feel her opening up with her father about this motivation also creates a special bond between her and her father when she later explains the circumstances of her going in his place.
On the opposite emotional spectrum, I enjoyed getting to see her sense of imagination and whimsy. While it’s always illuded to in other retellings, cough cough Disney, we never actually see her “with her head up in the clouds.” Yeah she enjoys reading in other versions, but she’s still relatively practical. So that statement never sat well with me. In this rendition, however, we actually get to see her being whimsical. This, I think, plays in well with how she interacts with the beast. It better explains, in my mind, how she is more easily able to see past his monstrous appearance than others. I loved how Lowham showed this whimsy being rediscovered by Beauty after she’d lost it. I especially like how the beast, someone who appears so reserved and pragmatic, was able to bring it back for her in the most subtle way… listening and encouraging.
I felt like having the castle be semi-sentient made a lot more sense than having walking talking furniture, like in the Disney versions, simply because this really amplifies his isolation. In the Disney version, while it adds pressure to him needing to break the curse, it also slightly lessens the loneliness of his punishment. Plus the furniture always confused me!! Do they age? Do they not? The Beast aged (it all revolved around his birthday). Did Mrs. Potts have Chip as a tea pot or as a human? So on and so forth. Suffice it to say, I was slightly please to not have that element to worry about in this version.
I think the most unique element to this rendition however is Stephen, the baron’s son that is the equivalent of Gaston. He adds an element that I think Gaston could have easily resorted to, if it wasn’t for the fact the story generally falls into a child’s G rated format. While it is a serious topic that his character creates, I believe it adds an element that many women, and yes men, could relate to. Not every charming person we come across is in it for altruistic means. I think an important thing is glazed over though is the fact that while Beauty might have been able to avoid Stephen’s temper and attack had she simply agreed to marry him, big MIGHT, it is by no means her choice that caused his behavior. She is not responsible for what he chose to do. I wish this conclusion had been addressed more in the character’s realization.
My only real pet peeve with this book is that it is evident that this is Lowham’s first book. There were moments when passages seemed a little disconnected. While I could reread the passages to get the overall flow of the passage, I found myself doing so on a number of occasions. If push comes to shove, I am willing to chalk this up to a different writing style than I am use to. However, this also left me wishing that just about everything was elaborated on more thoroughly. Due to the condensed state of most of the scenes and exchanges, this book was a quick read. I didn’t feel as much character growth and development as many of its counter parts have created. This saddened me because I feel like this book ended way too soon.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and devoured it within a week. I liked Elizabeth Lowham’s unique spin on this fairy tale and can’t wait to see what she writes next.