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Apr 2, 2015

My Thoughts: Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen

4 crunchy peanut butter cookies.

Cover Love:  Yes.  This cover is wild and fantastical and pretty.  Perfect for this story.

Why I Wanted to Read This:
This one wasn't high on my radar until I was offered a chance to review it.  I got a copy and gave it a try.  I was so glad I did!  here's the synopsis from GoodReads:

Sarah has always been on the move. Her mother hates the cold, so every few months her parents pack their bags and drag her off after the sun. She’s grown up lonely and longing for magic. She doesn’t know that it’s magic her parents are running from.
When Sarah’s mother walks out on their family, all the strange old magic they have tried to hide from comes rising into their mundane world. Her father begins to change into something wild and beastly, but before his transformation is complete, he takes Sarah to her grandparents—people she has never met, didn’t even know were still alive.
Deep in the forest, in a crumbling ruin of a castle, Sarah begins to untangle the layers of curses affecting her family bloodlines, until she discovers that the curse has carried over to her, too. The day she falls in love for the first time, Sarah will transform into a beast . . . unless she can figure out a way to break the curse forever.
Romance?:  There is a lot of romance, or love, talk in this book but there really isn't a romance.  That makes it sound weird but you'll understand once you read it.

My Thoughts:
At first I felt this was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and while there were elements of that story in here, it was actually it's own fairytale, very original.  (At least, it doesn't follow any traditional one of which I am aware).  This was beautifully written and very descriptive.  Even though the castle and wood where Sarah is taken are horrible and crumbling and messy, I wanted to be there. I wanted to help Sarah solve the mess of the curse placed upon her family.

I loved that in this tale the evil people weren't necessarily evil, but they were stubborn.  Never underestimate how petty people can be when they feel like they have been made a fool of.  Time passed weirdly in this book so I was never sure when we were at, but grudges were held onto tightly.  Because of one little mistake, generations were cursed.  Doesn't seem hardly fair to me.

The story works because of the writing.  This is a new kind of fairy tale and written so wonderfully that pages went by without me even realizing I was reading that much.  It just wormed inside me and kept me going.  

To Sum Up:  This modern fairy tale is written so wonderfully that you will not be able to put it down.  Going to add it to my school library for sure!

Book sent to me from Nicole at Macmillan.  Thanks Nicole!



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