Playing Catch Up! Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay

Playing Catch Up has really been helping me through my ever growing TBR list. I'd like to welcome all other blogs to participate too! If you do, be sure to post your links in the comments section. I'd love to see your Playing Catch Up Reviews, and I'm sure others would too!! *wink*

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Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay

Genre: Young Adult (Fantasy Romance/Retelling)
Date Published: July 23, 2013
Publisher: Delacorte Press

In the beginning was the darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret...

In the domed city of Yuan, the blind Princess Isra, a Smooth Skin, is raised to be a human sacrifice whose death will ensure her city’s vitality. In the desert outside Yuan, Gem, a mutant beast, fights to save his people, the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that together, they could return balance to both their worlds.

Isra wants to help the city’s Banished people, second-class citizens despised for possessing Monstrous traits. But after she enlists the aid of her prisoner, Gem, who has been captured while trying to steal Yuan’s enchanted roses, she begins to care for him, and to question everything she has been brought up to believe.

As secrets are revealed and Isra’s sight, which vanished during her childhood, returned, Isra will have to choose between duty to her people and the beast she has come to love.

Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay is quite an original retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I enjoyed the main characters quite a bit, and I loved how certain themes involving their appearances transpired as the story went on. It wasn't insta-love or even insta-attraction, which is a plus. Their friendship and trust grew over time. The story itself was slow at times, and I really wish it would have explained some things a little more. I needed more from the world building in general. What appealed to me most was the fact that "Beauty" and "Beast" were interchangeable. Both Isra and Gem, and even Bo if you think about it more, had aspects of Beauty and Beast within them. Their choices made them one or the other. 

Check out my review of another book by Stacey Jay!

Stacey Jay is a recovering workaholic (or at least working hard at recovering) with three pen names, two small children, and a passion for playing pretend for a living. She’s been a full time mom-writer since 2005 and can't think of anything she'd rather be doing. Her former careers include theatre performer, professional dancer, poorly paid C-movie actress, bartender, waiter, math tutor (for real) and yoga instructor.

To learn more about Stacey Jay and her books on Goodreads.