Readers of Tracy Wolff and Ava Reid will likely appreciate Jennifer Donnelly’s fascinating twist on a fairy tale, Beastly Beauty. In her version, Donnelly flips the script by creating a handsome man and a beast of a woman. Thrust together by fate or magic, these two young people have complicated pasts, so they carry heavy emotional pain. In a foreword, Donnelly tells readers that her story “isn’t for the heroes, shining knights, and princesses but for the screw-ups, for those who never get it right. The ones who say too much, or not enough. . . . It’s a story of hardship. And heart. And the courage it takes to choose hope over despair.”
After Lady Arabella has been cursed to live in the castle for not following her heart’s desire, her emotions come to life as her ladies in waiting. Donnelly cleverly creates anagrams to name the members of Arabella’s court, with each representing an emotional response. The leader of this group is Lady Espidra, and Donnelly describes despair as “a poisonous weed, sending her vines everywhere, choking off every bright emotion that tries to send up shoots” (152).
Before her curse, Arabella yearns “to learn how buildings are made. How towns and cities grow. How people live and work and play in them” (115). But as a duke’s daughter and only heir, she is expected to attend balls, “chatting and smiling and simpering at men who are duller than death” (115). Her mother insists, “You don’t need books and compasses to find a husband; you need a sweet, obliging manner and the right gown” (115). However, Arabella wishes to study architecture, not try on dresses.
When the fiery-spirited Arabella continues to resist, her mother makes her look in the mirror to discover “nostrils flaring like a bull’s. . . face as red as a rooster’s comb. . . voice as shrill as a hyena’s. . . bristling like some vile she-boar” (116) and tells her: “A girl who cannot control her emotions is no better than a beast” (116). Her aunt Lise adds: “No one likes an opinionated girl, Arabella. Or a loud girl. Or an angry girl. Or a difficult girl” (116). People would rather that a girl be a charming, congenial, cheerful, smiling, and positive individual who talks of gardens, concerts, and gowns. Convinced that she can’t be a girl who contains her body, her gestures, her voice, her emotional outbursts, and her passion for building, Arabella continues to pursue her interests in secret. She dreams of raising walls, building towers, and sending “spires up to pierce the sky” (133). Gradually, defiance dissipates, and when Arabella agrees to marry, despair takes control.
Donnelly not only explores the consequences of giving up hope and faith but suggests that “foolish people are vastly underrated. Only a foolish person saves a broken-winged bird who will never fly again, . . . hands a bunch of daisies to an angry old man, . . . or gives a nice new coat to a beggar girl” (156). What the world needs isn’t more clever people but “more hopelessly foolish people doing shockingly foolish things” (156).
One of these foolish people is Beauregard Armando Fernandez de Navarre, a gifted thief. Out of necessity to save himself and his brother Matteo (Matti), Beau has learned to provide by stealing. At age ten, knifed by a man whose wallet he attempted to steal, Beau is left to die in a snow bank. However, he is rescued by Raphael, a criminal gangster, whose goodwill has a price: Beau will work for him. Under Raphael’s mentoring, Beau woos ladies who reveal secrets that enable the gang to profit. It is on one of these missions, that he gets left behind at Arabella’s castle. Eager to depart, Beau discovers that he is trapped because the fleeing gang destroyed the bridge across the moat, trapping him among what he comes to realize are maniacs, mayhem, and magic.
This fairytale teaches us the importance of listening to our hearts rather than boxing up our passions and bending to the wills and wishes of another. Through the trials of Donnelly’s characters, the reader will discern the consequences that come when we allow someone else to write our story. The clockmaker tells Arabella: “You must do one thing and one thing only—become the person you were meant to be. No matter how daunting that task may be. Otherwise, your life is not a life; it is merely a long, protracted death. . . . And remember this—the whole world is ready and willing to tell you no” (159). Because Arabella worries that her desires are “a pretty dream,” she denies her passions and doubts her abilities to resist the status quo. She joins the “coward’s chorus.”
Beau, too, has taught himself to not want. “He’d learned long ago that it was better not to want things. That way, it didn’t hurt so much when you didn’t get them” (190). For Beau, one of those is love. Although he resists being drawn to Arabella, the truth is something different. “He wanted another key now—the key to the mystery that was Arabella. He wanted to turn it and see what it unlocked” (190).
Still, love is for fools, right? It is Camille, the kitchen girl, who tells Beau: “You think love is for weak people, but you’re wrong. Love is for the strongest. The bravest. The fiercest” (242). Love is for those willing to fight passionately, those willing to brave the status quo, and those daring to be different. Whether seeking a beauty or a powerful, fierce, and magnificent beast, the heart knows its desire. Regardless of that knowledge, Beau listens to the voice that tells him he is “nothing but a useless boy. . . . Nothing but a thief” (290).
“Love had broken Beau. He had loved his mother with all his heart, and she had been taken from him. He had loved his father, and the man walked away. He loved Matteo, and yet he’d had to leave him. And the pain of those losses had been unbearable” (290).
Just as Beau resists love, Arabella has been scarred by a century of sorrow and refuses to trust love. “She had been told for so long that girls who felt too much, and thought too much, and said too much, did not deserve it. That voice told her to keep quiet” (264).
The two learn that it is easy to build walls but harder to build bridges—both figuratively and literally. They also learn that love isn’t for the weak; it takes courage and a ferocious spirit to love another human being.
Readers will discover the outcome for these two. In the process, they will learn that all emotions send messages and that “there is good to be found in difficult feelings. How would injustice be stopped without anger? How would selfishness be curbed without guilt and shame? How would compassion grow without regret and remorse?” (306). Just as sorrow, rage, and fear are powerful motivators, we must always guard against despair by having faith and clinging to hope. That Donnelly pictures hope, faith, and love as children is itself a telling metaphor. Although hope gives possibilities, turning them into certainties is our responsibility.
Another lesson emerges in a paradox: “If you want to know a person, don’t ask to hear their truth. Listen to their lies” (240). A final message reveals itself in the epilogue: “Endings are rarely happy. Just ask a gravedigger. Instead, we’ll talk of beginnings. Messy, hard, painful beginnings” (323).
- Posted by Donna