I love Beauty and the Beast, and this book still managed to surprise me. I'm not saying it has much in common with previous incarnations of the story, but damn this was a good one. It sucked me in so completely, and managed to give all the characters several layers, and I just love that. ( )

This book was absolutely glorious. It wouldn't let me put it down. Thank you DJL for the recommendation! ( )

“In the beginning was the darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret.”

A Beauty and the Beast retelling … but they’re both beasts?

Centuries ago, humans arrived on a foreign planet and found ways to survive in their harsh new environment. Now, domed cities protect the Smooth Skins from the outside world and a blood covenant keeps their ground fertile and their people prosperous, while the Desert People live off the land, their scales and claws earning them the name “Monstrous.”

But both peoples are suffering. A curse was cast by the planet’s Pure Heart that will either unite the two groups or destroy them in the end. Princess Isra of Yuan, blind and tainted by Monstrous traits, was born to be a sacrifice, a queen without power. When a Monstrous boy is captured trying to steal the city’s enchanted roses to save his tribe from starvation, Isra begins to realize he isn’t as Monstrous as she has always believed. And that isn’t the only lie she has been told…

A mix of sci-fi and fantasy, a world where nothing is as it seems — I was on the edge of my seat from the first chapter! ( )

I really enjoyed this. It's one of the best retellings I've read, actually feels original, not so much a retelling. The romance is believable. The characters are great. The world is well done. The storyline is awesome. I definitely fell into this book. It's about a people who came to a planet. The planet's god is screwed up because of some things the people did. It creates a big rift of the people. The ones outside the dome become sort of human/animal hybrids. The people inside are more traditional. Things are going wrong now. The planet is dying. It's interesting. I recommend checking it out. ( )

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, for many reasons.

Beauty and the Beast is a story that has seen so many retellings that it's difficult to expect one to feel "fresh." This retelling, however, is both fresh and more subtle in its nods to the original, or at least to the Disney version.

Isra is the (blind) Princess of Yuan, a domed city where the residents are dependent on a garden of magical roses for prosperity. As the Princess, it is her fate to eventually sacrifice herself to the roses for the city to continue flourishing. Outside of the city's dome lies endless desert, where people known as the Monstrous live, including our male lead, Gem. The people of Yuan believe them to be dangerous, and less than human. Both sides hold many misconceptions about the other, as they have been separated for so long.

There were so many aspects of the book that didn't immediately come across as nods to the original story, which I found to be really well-done. The rose garden is, of course, obvious. But the fact that Isra believes herself to be a monster, and it's not just Gem filling that role, was an interesting twist.

There is another man vying for Isra's affections, in parallel to Gaston--but I honestly didn't really think about it until quite a ways into the book.

The "deformities" of both the Monstrous and certain people within the city of Yuan is a gentle nod to the transformation of the castle servants of the original, as is the roses' spell.

My only real complaint, and the reason for docking one star, is the fact that most of the romance occurs off the page. There are romantic scenes, yes, but...they meet and don't initially get along, and then there's a time skip of two months in which they "work on the garden together." It made the eventual romance seem a little contrived. I wouldn't call it forced or awkward, but it certainly didn't have a lot of build-up via scenes within the book.

I really enjoyed the world-building, the history of the domed cities and desert, the struggles of the main characters, and the fresh take on the Beauty and the Beast tale. ( )