Beast Book

Hey author, your plot device is showing.

And not just little glimpses here and there; in this book they're as naked as baby mole rats.

In fact, 'Beast' is basically one giant plot device to tell a fairytale, with awkward glimpses of a novel, instead of a novel that turns out, quite delightfully, to be a fairytale.
The premise is certainly interesting: Beauty and the Beast told from the Beast's point of view. Ooh and he's Persian too, how exotic!

But two chapters in I realized that it was going to be a major letdown. The book used words and sentences and paragraphs, but they didn't seem to be doing the jobs that words and sentences and paragraphs are supposed to do: depict setting, report dialogue and, most importantly, flesh out characters. Here they are just vehicles for Napoli to use all the foreign words she found in her research. It's as if, by sheer italic force, she is going to make the reader notice how much time she spent researching ancient Persia. "Look, look- I learned all these fancy words and by golly, I'm going to use every single one of them!"
Never mind that it breaks the flow of the narrative, never mind that a first person narrator wouldn't mentally be stopping to define things, never mind that I didn't come to read a hagiography of Persia, and please get on with the story.

But the real reason this book fails to engage the reader (though it is quite easy to read) is that Orasmyn, the character we are stuck through the whole book, is unbelievable.

Problem 1: He is a prince, the only son of the Shah of Persia, and he is a weakling.
This alone does not disqualify him as believable character but there is no reason at all WHY he is this way. What reason does he have to be scared of the hunt? Why does he hate sacrifice?
The fact that both his parents love him just the way he is struck another discordant note. The Shah of all Persia (and it seems rather a stretch to say that a mighty Shah would ever only have one child) loves his son even though his heir shows no inclination to fighting, war or any of the other duties a prince will one day assume. In fact, he's pretty incompetent at everything. Surely his father would be at least a little frustrated with his play-in-the-roses son, if not downright hate him.

And here is where Napoli could have created a more believable Orasmyn #1. He would still be the weak, rose-loving prince but without his parents' love. His father is ashamed of him, in fact, and is perhaps plotting to put an illegitimate son on the throne in his place, or perhaps he has a younger brother who outshines him and has the people's love. The rose garden would then become a natural place of safety and retreat- a glimpse into the troubled soul of a troubled prince. The curse too could be centered around his own weaknesses- perhaps he summons a pari to find a way to defeat his usurping (Gaston-like) brother and she tricks him.

Which brings us to Problem 2: the curse. It's lame.
I'm sorry, but killing a camel with a scar does not mean you deserve to get turned into a lion. And here is the confusing note- it's hard to tell if Napoli agrees with this or not. Because it's hard to tell how she feels about Islam in this story. At the beginning, one expects to see a bit of tension between native Zoastrianism and invading Islam. Orasmyn likes his native folklore and yet has a deep, unshakeable faith in Islam. But which one does he adhere to more? A novel would have highlighted this internal tension; this book is too busy defining words. Even more fundamental to the story: which religion is responsible for the curse?

The pari is Persian but the crime is against the Quran. So if Orasmyn believes more deeply in Islam, wouldn't he eventually have to come to grips with the fact that his religion has turned him into a lion for disobeying a rather arbitrary rule that he really isn't even responsible for? Wouldn't that cause just a little bit of internal wrestling, perhaps even a crisis of faith?

Problem 3: Orasmyn is a lion.
At the beginning, one assumes that as time will pass he will grow more and more leonine. I began imagine a great struggle as the human side of Orasmyn fights to retain his identity, to battle against the beast-like side of his nature. This does occur, but there is no alternating lion personality to create a true struggle.

In fact, as a lion, Orasmyn is pretty terrible. He can't hunt, can hardly fend for himself, and just sort of wanders around moping over his life. I was hoping for passages told completely through a lion's eyes- a lion who has always been a lion, who acts solely on instinct and resents this strange mind that keeps intruding into his own.

Back and forth passages between Orasmyn and the lion would have been awesome- 1st person to 3rd person and back again, at least in the second part, which consists mostly of Orasmyn walking around and eating cats.

In fact, the first two parts are so lengthy, and so unrelated to Beauty and the Beast, that the third part, in which she tries to prove that is really Beauty and the Beast she's been telling, is horribly rushed (by this time you won't mind, however, since you just want it all to be over). Forget about a real relationship between Belle and the Beast; Orasmyn is too busy raiding kitchens and garbage barrels to actually spend time with the girl who is his sort-of captive.

Also, that awesome scene in the movie where he transforms back into a price? Forget that too- 3 sentences at the end ought to suffice. And forget a Gaston character. Or the servants. Or really anything that makes the movie/fairytale awesome. Because hey, reading about making candles is fun.

[Also, what is the meaning of this passage, in what is supposed to be a book for middle school/high school readers? "[Belle's] backside presents itself to me. Like the backside of a lioness. The urge to mate renders me hot and savage."
Stop. Just stop. Was it really necessary to make it go that direction? No. No, it was not.]

And here I come to more believable Orasmyn #2, and the one, in my opinion that would have been far better. He would be a young, arrogant prince, the darling of the entire kingdom who is bold and ruthless on the hunt. Perhaps one day he comes across an old lion, feeble and weak. He should spare the beast, but instead he kills it, not because it is a threat, but just because he can. And then a pari curses him (more justly) and he is forced to dwell in lion skin, where he begins to question everything he believes about his faith, his family and his own place in the world.
The rest of the plot would be similar but with a much more believable narrator to carry us along.

Final verdict: 1 star. It's really not worth the time or effort.