Books
What To Read After Watching 'Beauty & The Beast'
Tale as old as time. Beauty and the Beast is back, and this time it stars Emma Watson as our favorite bookworm, Belle. Like many other fairytales, this Disney classic has been remade (and rewritten) time and time again. Luckily, that means the magic doesn't have to end when you leave the theater — there are many books like Beauty and the Beast you can read after watching the movie.
You may not know that this Disney classic existed long before Belle had a signature golden dress and Mrs. Potts was keeping the peace in the castle. And, unsurprisingly, it has been retold in surprising ways. The original story actually comes from France. In La Belle et la Bête by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, Belle isn't a merchant's daughter, but the child of a fairy king and queen. (She also had five siblings — three brothers and two sisters!) After Barbot de Villeneuve's death, the story was rewritten, abridged and published by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756. In 2014, a gorgeous live action French film was released, based on the Barbot de Villeneuve's title. And in 2012, the CW put their stamp on the classic with a modern version where the beauty is an NYPD detective and the beast is an ex-soldier everyone believes was killed in action.
There's something about this story that just lends itself to remakes. It's a classic story of love despite the odds, and I can't get enough. If you, like me, want more Beauty and the Beast, here are seven books to keep the magic going:
1'The Beauty and the Beast' by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve
Return to where it all began — but with an extra dose of magic. This gorgeous illustrated edition is the perfect gift (for yourself!)
2'When Beauty Tamed the Beast' (Fairy Tales #2) by Eloisa James
Linnet Berry Thrynne is a famous beauty. Yet, somehow, she can't make a suitable match. And so she is forced to marry Piers Yelverton, Earl of Marchant. But can she tame his wild heart?
3'Uprooted' by Naomi Novik
A wizard known as Dragon takes a beautiful girl from a village every ten years. While everyone believes the beautiful and brave Kasia will be taken, it is Agnieszka whom the Dragon claims as his. But what she discovers in the Dragon's castle isn't at all what she was expecting.
4'The Wrath & The Dawn' by Renée Ahdieh
While technically a retelling of One Thousand and One Nights, this one will fill the The Beauty and the Beast shaped whole in your life nicely. Shahrzad is a beauty who must find a way to love a man whose actions are beastly.
5'Beastly' (Kendra Chronicles #1) by Alex Flynn
Rich and gorgeous Kyle Kingsbury is turned into a beast by a curse. So what happens when he falls in love?
6'Cruel Beauty' (Cruel Beauty Universe #1) by Rosamund Hodge
Nyx has been betrothed to an evil ruler since birth — and she has spent her whole life training to hill him. But now that the time has come, she must reconsider what she thought she knew about the man.
7'Of Beast and Beauty' by Stacey Jay
This sci-fi retelling takes place in a world where second-class citizens possess monstrous traits and rebel against the kingdom. Read along as Princess Isra, a Smooth Skin, falls in love with one of the Mutants.
8'Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast' by Robin McKinley
Beauty takes on her father's punishment with the challenge of taming the beast herself in this adaptation that closely follows the original legend.
9'Beauty and the Werewolf' by Mercedes Lackey
Bella — Isabella Beauchamps — is determined to break the curse of the nobleman-turned-werewolf who attacked her Granny. This one is actually a cross between Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood.
10'Hunted' by Meagan Spooner
Yeva is a huntress, and when her father goes missing, she tracks him to a desolate ruined castle full of magical beings. There, she meets her beast.
11'Stolen Songbird' (The Malediction Trilogy #1) by Danielle L. Jensen
For five hundred years, a witch's curse has kept the trolls imprisoned beneath the Forsaken Mountain. When Cécile is brought to Trollus, she has one thing on her mind: escaping. But then she begins to fall for the troll prince to whom she's been married.
12'A Court of Thorns and Roses' (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas
Huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods and is taken by a beast-like creature to a magical land as payment. But she discovers that her captor is Tamlin — one of the fae who once ruled her world — and only she can save their doomed realms.
