Of Beast and Beauty -- Stacey Jay

Of beast and beauty

Generations ago, humans colonized a planet with three moons. Shortly after they arrived, their bodies began to change, to twist, to grow scales.

To avoid mutation, they made a deal with the Dark Heart of the planet: in exchange for the ability to live safely within domed cities, with their smooth skin intact, gardens luscious, and food plentiful... they will, every so often, sacrifice their queen to the Dark Heart's magic roses.

Outside of the domes are the Monstrous. Those descended from the colonists who weren't lucky enough to avoid the changes. They are violent, inhuman beasts, incapable of thought or feeling.

That's what Isra, Princess of Yuan has grown up believing.

Gem, meanwhile, grew up outside the dome. He's grown up hating the Smooth Skins because they prosper while his people suffer.

In a desperate attempt to save his people—and his infant son—from starvation, Gem enters the dome, hoping to steal one of the magic roses that is rumored to be the key to the Smooth Skins' prosperity. He is captured quickly, but in that short amount of time, three things happen: he has the opportunity to kill Isra, but he doesn't; he is gravely injured; and the King is killed, making Isra the Queen.

Which means that the clock is suddenly ticking for both of them: Isra's days are now numbered, and Gem's people are still on the brink of extinction. If they work together, they'll be able to save everyone... but a lifetime of xenophobia is a hard thing to overcome.

That was kind of a long intro for a post about a book that is A) basically just a retelling (obvs) of Beauty and the Beast, and B) for me, an across-the-board meh read.

A few thoughts:

  • It's a mix of SF and straight-up F. On the SF end, we've got the colonization of a new planet, as well as the occasional mention of technology that has been lost, and on the F end we've got magic-induced-rapid-evolution and the curse/blessing of the roses provided by the god-like beings Dark Heart and the Pure Heart. The worldbuilding varies from feeling overblown (there's just so MUCH going on, with the Yuan politics to the search for the Original Covenant to the blindness-by-poison to the Dark/Pure Heart stuff) to just vaguely sketched in (the world and culture of the Monstrous, which we get very little of, and mostly via Gem's expository dialogue), but that's also possibly a personal problem: stories that incorporate elements of BOTH SF and F almost always feel that way to me. 
  • In their first few scenes together, neither Isra nor Gem is all that likable, which could well turn off readers who're already on the fence. They alternate narration, and their lifetime of hating each others' people is on full display... that visceral hatred makes their rapid connection and subsequent romance hard to believe, ESPECIALLY given that Jay fast-forwards over their first two weeks of working together in the garden.
  • I did like, though, that Jay acknowledged the physical facet of the Isra/Gem attraction, and that it didn't play into the Blindness-Breaks-Ugliness-Barrier trope. Yes, Isra's blindness allows her to get to know Gem (even though they're lying to each other throughout) on a personality level first, but when she (SPOILER) regains her sight, she finds his appearance beautiful. Not DESPITE his differences, and not (entirely) BECAUSE of his differences, but just because she finds him beautiful, full-stop. Which was nice.

Although it didn't do a whole lot for me overall—from a story angle, a prose angle, or a emotional angle—I did find the Epilogue, which talked about how there is a Beauty and a Beast in all of us, oddly affecting.

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Book source: Finished copy from the publisher.