The Borrowed Rose: Beauty and the Beast Book Recommendations and Retellings

This is not a fairytale post - at least not yet*…   “A life without books is a life not lived, Dior. There’s a magik like no other to be found in them. To open a book is to open a door—to another place, another time, another mind. And usually, mademoiselle, it’s a mind far sharper than your own.” ― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned I just finished Empire of the Damned , book 2 in the Empire of the Vampire series by Jay Kristoff , and I loved it! Empire of the Vampire series by Jay Kristoff Warning - it's a cliffhanger!  And while I'm not irritated by that, I'm anxious to find out what shenanigans Gabriel de León and his band of misfits will pull off.  I anticipated the ending, but wasn't disappointed in any way.  I loved the dual points-of-view throughout and the dynamic layers within the final scenes. Kristoff's style is grimdark, gothic and edgy; his use of language profuse and lovely.  His writing reminds me of what baroque might look like as a writi...

Beauty and the Beast has been around for a looonng time - evolving from variations of Cupid & Psyche from the 2nd century AD.  What about the werewolf trope?  It was myth and folklore long before it was a paranormal trope today.  Early writings about lycanthropy popped up early in the 1st century AD and then later in the 1100-1200s.  Dealing with werewolves was concern enough in medieval Europe to write about it.   Both mythologies involve the animal nature of man - whether good or evil, whether to embrace or to tame.  The original Beauty and the Beast used a similar animal magnetism to demonstrate how young women can claim their own agency to tame the beast in a coming of age experience. It's not surprising then, to see these two mythologies cross over from time to time.  Jerry Griswold comments in his fun Beauty and the Beast commentary,  The Meanings of "Beauty and the Beast:" A Handbook , that "in a hyper-civilized society like ou...