The Beast Within: A Tale of Beauty's Prince by Serena Valentino

Beauty and the Beast is one of my top 3 favorite Disney fairytales, both the animated and live action version, so I had to read Serena Valentino's book 2 from the villain series; The Beast Within: A Tale of Beauty's Prince. This is yet another book that I loved. I liked reading about the Beast's perspective and there was little mention about Belle. Of course she is a very important part of the story but I liked the focus being on other aspects of Beast's life, not just how she helped save him but how he helped save himself from his arrogant vanity and view of how women should be.

This version of the tale of Beauty and the Beast is slightly darker than what we Disney fans are used to, unless you have watched Disney's Once Upon A Time, but that is an entirely different conversation for another time. Anyway, The Beast Within gives readers more details on Beast's background, it portrays him and Gaston as the best of friends and it details him as being engaged two times before he has his run in with Belle. It was his reaction to a small detail that later turned out to be a test from his first engagement that led to his curse.

One thing that I did not like about this book was that it did not explain or mention where his parents were yet he was still a just prince. Despite there being an extravagant ball where he met his second fiance and got his first sight of Belle, his parents were no where to be found. I thought that odd. Another way this book was interestingly different from the movies was that his perception of his cursed servants was different than that of anyone else in the story and definitely different from the movies. To Beast, his cursed servants were more like statues that randomly appeared whether he needed them or not. Plus they did not talk to him, it was as if they couldn't. But to Belle and the other servants they were lively, although still not in their human bodies, but they could speak to her and each other. Beast's castle became a very dark, creepy, and lonely place to him but that is exactly how his first fiance who turned out to be a witch wanted it to be. She wanted him to learn that vanity and status is not everything and that if he couldn't learn to love or be loved truly then his life would forever be dreadful. You know, same as the movies. Another thing that was same as the movies was that Gaston dies but it is after he has forgotten that he was best friends with the beastly prince.

There was a lot of anger and denial from Beast which I see as something that helps reminds readers that he is human and there was yet again a reminder that vanity can be very harmful. That is a theme that keeps recurring in fairytales and many other stories. Interesting we humans are and sometimes boring. Vanity, smh.

Tale as old as time,

The Black Bibliophage

Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson

Is it worth feeling like an outsider to gain opportunities? Jade Butler is a young black woman in high school. She is not skinny or in shape, instead she has curves a creative soul that loves collaging. In her story Piecing Me Together, Jade hopes to someday venture off into a world greater than her own run down neighborhood in Portland, Oregon and she believes she can do so by learning a another language, Spanish.

I read this book April of this year and I wanted to revisit it. Throughout this cleverly titled novel the author Renée Watson depicts just how much the main character Jade and the supporting characters are much like Jade's favorite hobby collaging. Watson conveys through her words that at some point in our lives or throughout our entire lives, we are piecing ourselves together. Learning what makes who we are, what bothers us, and what we should do with our lives to accomplish any dreams we have.

This novel reminded me that teens need adults they can relate to especially in school and that even those that we think we can relate to and share the same cultural background with can be so much different than us depending on the environment they were raised in. I say that because in Jade's story, her family is poor and her white school guidance counselor doesn't truly understand what it is like for Jade to attend a mostly white private school where the families are predominantly wealthy. This guidance counselor is also the one who thinks Jade is the perfect prospect for a community program called Woman to Woman: A Mentorship Program for African American Girls, when Jade's actual dream is to be nominated for the schools study abroad program so that she can travel to a Spanish speaking country. Jade decides to participate in Woman to Woman and she is assigned a mentor, Maxine, who is not the best mentor in the beginning because she stands her up at the very first mentor/mentee meeting. Jade is weary about her mentor because she doesn't seem to be paying attention to her since she has her own life issues and is piecing herself together as well. It takes a while for Jade to accept Maxine, especially when she finds out that unlike herself, Maxine comes from a wealthy black family and has had a lot given to her. How could she relate to any of Jade's poor black girl struggles?

I thought it was good for Jade to have a mentor and I liked the relationship she and Maxine built and how it still created new opportunities for Jade even when she felt her dream was deferred. And I almost applauded when Jade confronted her Spanish teacher and asked him why she wasn't nominated for the study abroad program. His explanation was logical and it helped Jade come to peace with things she could not control. There are so many more details to this novel but these stuck out to me the most. This is a good book for young women to read and discuss, it made me want to start my own mentor program and share my life collage so far.

The pieces I am,

The Black Bibliophage

Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen by Serena Valentino

"Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" Fairest of All is the title of the first book of six tales written by Serena Valentino. These books are adapted from Disney movies and express the lives and point of view of some of those malevolent Disney movie characters that we love to hate.

This villainous version of the classic fairytale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was published by Disney Press in 2009 and shows the Wicked Queen's soul shattering journey from a beautiful yet insecure daughter of a mirror maker, to a loved queen and Snow White's step mother, to a heartbroken widow, to an envious and sinister witch, and then to a remorseful ugly hag.

Of the six novels currently in Serena Valentino's villain series, this is the third one I have read so far which bothers me a little because I like to read and watch things in logical order. However, with these books, it does not cause mass confusion if the books are read out of order because you do not have to read one before the other in order to understand each villain's story. Each one has pieces that connect the tales. I will say the first book of the series I read was the third one Poor Unfortunate Soul, the tale of the sea witch Ursula, but I did not know it was series book when I bought it from a book fair and the second one I read was the fourth one, Mistress of All Evil, the story of Maleficent the dark fairy.

But, let's focus back on Fairest of  All, I thought it started out rather slow. It had some interesting details that were building up the rest of the story but the way it was written was not very interesting to me. So, I decided that was because this was the author's first book in this series especially since I thought the other two I read were AMAZING! One other thing that drew my attention was that the Queen, Snow White's step mother who later became the Wicked Queen, didn't really have a name. She was always referred to as 'the Queen or the Wicked Queen" nevertheless I continued to read the book and I did enjoy the story. It reminded me of how incredibly insecure some women can be and how what parents say and do can greatly affect their children even in adulthood.

There was also another factor in the downfall of the Queen. Well three factors, the Odd Sisters, some characters we Disney fans are not used to. They are a meddlesome trio of conniving witches that show up in Valentino's other villain series novels. They took joy in watching the Queen transform into the Wicked Queen who tried to kill the step daughter that she loved as her own. The Queen's reasoning for attempting to murder Snow White was not just because she wanted to remain the fairest in the land but because she also wanted to protect Snow White from being hurt or suffering a broken heart like she herself greatly suffered when the King died. This book made me feel sorry for the Wicked Queen as well as learn more about these Odd Sisters.

In closing, I will be reading every book in this villain series, currently I'm reading book 2, The Beast Within.

See you in a few little bird,

The Black Bibliophage

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

This book, this book right here, The Hate U Give, is real. It is also one of those books that I wanted to read before I ever laid eyes on its cinematic version. Once I did start reading it, I couldn't wait to find out what would happen next. It jumped right into action from the start.

The way Angie Thomas wrote this book at times made me feel like I was the main character, Starr Carter. I felt her black teen in America pain. At other times, I wanted to be there with Starr, especially so she wouldn't feel so alone at her mostly white prep school. I wanted to fight the war against American inequalities with her and I wanted to help and comfort her.

I really think this should be an assigned reading or highly encouraged option for high school students to read and analyze. It has so much to offer, it can break barriers if given the opportunity. It tackles racism, encourages community, and provides an eye opener to the struggles, faults, and dreams of Americans who are black.

Anyone who challenges this book can have a talk with me because it simply implies they do not understand or do not want to understand.

The last thing I will comment on is the movie version. I thought it was ok. It just seemed to change or was missing important details that the book laid out and I don't appreciate the changes made to Starr's older brother Seven. In the book he is her half brother on her father's side while in the movie they share both parents. That change in a detail that may seem minor, is actually very important to the epic plot line of the book which I love over the movie any day.

THUG LIFE,

The Black Bibliophage