Words I Write Crazy: Week 22 Reviews: Beastly, Lindy's Diary, Bewitching, Mirrored, Behold

Saturday, June 1, 2024

Week 22 Reviews: Beastly, Lindy's Diary, Bewitching, Mirrored, Behold

From Goodreads:
I am a beast. A beast. Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog, but a horrible new creature who walks upright – a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. I am a monster.

You think I'm talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It's no deformity, no disease. And I'll stay this way forever – ruined – unless I can break the spell.

Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I'll tell you. I'll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and a perfect life. And then, I'll tell you how I became perfectly beastly.

From Goodreads:
See the #1 New York Times bestselling story Beastly through Lindy's eyes! This is her diary, kept while living in captivity with the beast. Lindy's Diary captures all the romance and edgy mystery of the original!

Diary,

I am locked away . . . with no one to confide in but you . . . and him. His fur, those claws—they caught me off guard at first, but now I'm noticing something else about him—something deeper. It's the look in his eye. It tells me he's got a secret to keep. That's okay—I've got one, too. I think I'm falling in love with him. . . .

Lindy

From Goodreads:
Bewitching can be a beast. . . .

Once, I put a curse on a beastly and arrogant high school boy. That one turned out all right. Others didn't.

I go to a new school now—one where no one knows that I should have graduated long ago. I'm not still here because I'm stupid; I just don’t age.

You see, I'm immortal. And I pretty much know everything after hundreds of years—except for when to take my powers and butt out.

I want to help, but things just go awry in ways I could never predict. Like when I tried to free some children from a gingerbread house and ended up being hanged. After I came back from the dead (immortal, remember?), I tried to play matchmaker for a French prince and ended up banished from France forever. And that little mermaid I found in the Titanic lifeboat? I don’t even want to think about it.

Now a girl named Emma needs me. I probably shouldn't get involved, but her gorgeous stepsister is conniving to the core. I think I have just the thing to fix that girl—and it isn't an enchanted pumpkin. Although you never know what will happen when I start . . . bewitching.

From Goodreads:
A modern, multi-generational tale of Kendra, the witch from "Snow White," who trains Violet, an ugly, lonely, and heartbroken girl in the 1980s who transforms herself into "the fairest one of all" but still cannot win Greg's heart, and Celine, Greg's daughter with Violet's high school rival, Jennifer.

From Goodreads:
#1 New York Times bestselling YA author Alex Flinn is back with magical twists on four fairy-tale favorites, each featuring a little help from Kendra, the witch from Beastly, as she searches through cities and centuries for her lost love.

Being a powerful witch, Kendra has survived it all. Since she first beheld James over three hundred years ago, Kendra has tangled with witch hunters and wolves, helped a miller's daughter spin straw into gold, cowered in London as German bombs fell, and lived through who knows how many shipwrecks. But her powers have limits, and immortality can be lonely. Kendra isn't ready to stop searching for the warlock she had met centuries ago.

With the help of her magic mirror, Kendra will travel the world to reconnect with her lost love—and, of course, she can't help but play a hand in a few more stories along the way.

Featuring retellings of favorite fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and The Ugly Duckling, Alex Flinn's latest young adult novel, Beheld, is fresh fairy-tale fun from beginning to end.

My first review of Beastly, Bewitched
My Review:
I had such a great time reading this series! I enjoyed the two books that I'd previously read, but I hadn't read most of them before, so it was great to read all of them back to back to back! To see all these things that Kendra's put into motion, yeah, I had a great time reading them!

Beastly, and Lindy's Diary, while a part of Kendra's Chronicles and affected by her, aren't narrated by her, because it isn't really her story, it's theirs. But watching them fall in love was really entertaining to do again, watching him work on his bad traits.

Kendra's habit of dipping into and out of stories, these modern day retellings, was really fascinating to me, the roles that she played. She had her own story going on, but it wasn't always the focus. Like in Mirrored, it's her apprentice who plays the role of wicked Queen. So that was an interesting take on the story.

But Behold, yeah, that was such a great read! I can totally understand why being immortal would be lonely, and I was rooting for her and James, and the tales that she encountered along the way were just and added boost of entertainment, and so enjoyable to read!

These were fantastic reads and I can't wait to read more by Alex Flinn!

Author: Alex Flinn
Series: Kendra's Chronicles #1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4
First Read: February 6th, 2012, April 19th, 2012
Read: May 29th, 29th, 29th, 29th, 29th, 2024
Source: Own, Own/Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Reason Why: I really enjoy her books, and they're 2024 Retelling Reading Challenge Books and Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2024 Books! And Behold is a End of Series 2024 Book!
Publisher: Harper Teen
Published: January 1st 2007, January 31st 2012, February 14th 2012, September 15th 2015, January 10th 2017

Beastly: