Beauty

"And since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful"

Beauty
By Robin McKinley
Copeyright 1978
Haper Trophy
Fairy Tale
Middle School Age or maybe even 4th or 5th
247 Pages

A sixteen year old girl with a nick name that is far but what she is, Beauty, has her own tale of magic and the prosses of love that only those who know how to look beyound what they see can have.  Beauty was anything but beautiful, she was awkward and not very porportional.  She knew she was not beautiful and did not like her nick name at all because of it.  Her sisters however were beautiful and it was common for guys to give them a poper hello by even bowing to them and just nodding their head to Beauty.  Hope, Grace, Hounor (Beauty) live with their father in the city and have a very good life until, the bussness goes under when their father lost all his ships in a storm.  They all took this hard, they lost basicly everything, Grace even lost her love.  The family moves with Hopes soon to be husban (Ger) and they move far away from the big city to the kind of place they have never really lived before.  OH before they moved they had an auction for all their belongings.  Most everything was sold, but some people gave the family things, including a horse the Beauty had helped take care of since it was born.  This horse needed her, she was the only one that it would listion too.  So the family moved.  Ger was the new town blacksmith and they moved to a little cabin right by the woods.  These woods were not what they seemed to be though.  Nothing lived in them, no animals ever came out of the forest.  People told stories about this place, that is why they had lost their two blacksmiths before Ger.  Inside these woods, lived ... the beast.  After all the stories they were told never to go into the woods.  Beauty who was now even more interested remaind out side of them, but not after she went a little inside them. 
Their father got a letter saying that one of his ships had returned, this made Grace on edge hopping it was Robbies boat (Rod, the man that she loves, and even though it has been a long time she still loves him)  He leaves to go back to the city.  When he returns, their lives are changed forever.  He had gotten lost in the woods, he had found the castle, he had met the beast.  All because he tried to take one of the roses, he would have to return with Beauty, and she would then belong to the beast.  He told them all this story.  When the time came Beauty left with her father, of course there was much discussion about this, but she has made up he mind, she was going, by her own free will.  They found the castle, all you have to do is get lost in the woods and you will find it, and her fathers horse was too afriad to go in there again, but Beauty and Greatheart went.  She told her father goodbye, and she entered the gates to the castle. 
The enchantment of the castle started to grow on her, of corse at first she was a little bit firghtened, but she spent six months there.  Everyday was about the same.  The beast that she was so afraid of at the start, began to grow on her.  Everynight after dinner he would ask her to marry him, she said no, but everytime it got harder.  She hated dressing in the fancy dresses, she thought they were too beautiful for someone as ugly as her to wear them.  The beast (who I did fall in love with reading this book) thought she was beautiful "And since i am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful"  There are no mirrors in the castle, since the beast would not be looking at himself, so to him, the only one that can see her, she is beautiful.  She loved his libary, that had books that werent even writen yet in them, he gave her everything, and still night after night she said no. 
Something happened, she found out through another one of the castles enchantments that Graces love had returned.  The beast let her go to her family, she had to tell Grace, because there was another who wanted her hand and the family was trying to convince her to marry him.  BUT if Beauty did not come back in a week, the beast would die, because he cannot live without her.  She spent her week and an extra day at home with her family.  They had sent letters to Robbie to tell him where they were and hope that he would return with the person who they sent the letters with.  The night at she stayed extra she had a dream that Beast was dead.  She woke up and saw the rose he gave her before she left and saw that it was wilted and brown and the pettles were fallen.   She raced to him, she could not find the castle.  Her and Greatheart had no energy.  They found the catsle after such a long time with such little rest, and she ran to him , still having trouble in the castle finding her way.  Then she found him, just like in her dream, he was there sitting still, unresponsive.  She called his name she was crying, "My love wake up."  He did awake, and he thought she had broken her promise.  She was there, and was never going to leave again, Beauty loved Beast and wanted to marry him.  Something happened, and when she opened her eyes Beast was no longer there and it was a man, the man from the painting she had seen in one of the rooms in the castle.  After a having to have the conversation of what just happened because Beauty started worring were her Beast was and that she could not marry this guy, he was her Beast, and they did marry.

I would recomend this book to anyone.  It was a little slow at the start but I really got into it and I think that it was a really good book.  I already told all my roommates that they should read it.  I think I kinda liked it better then the disney movie.

It was a little slow at the start, but it was so beautifuly writen, it kind of makes up for that.

I loved this book.  I want to read the other book for it.  I felt like I could be Beauty.  People calling her Beauty when she thought she was nothing of the sort.  She thought so lowly of herself.  Now all I need is to meet my Beast Prince, who thinks that I am beautful.  That is why I love that qoute so much, because when you ar ein love or someone loves you, what does it matter what you look like, because they love you, and they see you for you and to them you are the most beautiful person in the world. 
"And since i am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful"