Beast A Tale of Love and Revenge - Lisa Jensen (ARC Kindle Edition)

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and publisher for an ARC of this book.

"Virtue is yours to make of what you will, by your actions, by your character. No one else can ever take it from you." I honestly am not even sure where to start with this book. I would say overall, it's problematic. This may be the most jumbled review I've ever written...because I honestly can't quite figure out how I feel about it. And there will be spoilers because I'm not even sure how to review it without them. First of all - if you were looking for a retelling from the Beast's perspective, move along, because this is not it. It's not told from anyone featured in the original story. That was my first let down. I really wanted a Beast's retelling. Trigger warnings for rape/sexual abuse/mental abuse. This is where it gets problematic... post-transformation Beast is totally sweet and the victim starts to have feelings for him and they actually end up together...like WHAT. The twist that makes this not so problematic is that the Beast is actually a different "being" than his human form? Which is super confusing in itself. And doesn't totally remove the idea of a girl forgiving and falling in love with her rapist. I just. I don't know. If the rape aspect was removed and instead he'd just been terribly cruel to her, I think it would've sat a lot better in my mind. The plus sides - The ending was nice, tied up with a bow happy ending that you want in a fairy tale (if you're a happy ending person).

- I did feel empathy towards the Beast, so that's a credit to Lisa Jensen for writing strong characters and instilling emotion in the reader (however...again, his human form raped someone so should we *really* be forgiving and feeling empathy towards his Beast form??)

- The sisters were great little bits of comic relief - I honestly don't think that Lisa Jensen meant to write an rape apologist book, especially with the quote I posted above about virtue. I just think it did not translate well, especially in our current world where sexual abuse, slut shaming, and women being afraid to come forward is such a hot topic. - I enjoyed the overall writing and will be interested in reading other works by Lisa.