Review: Benton is a beast you want to cuddle up to.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 29, 2014
Benton wants nothing more than he wants Nissa. He doesn’t care that no one else thinks she is beautiful. She is beautiful to him, but she doesn’t deserve a scarred beast such as him. When a crazy old woman comes to him declaring herself his fairy godmother, he goes along with her talk. What’s the harm? He agrees that having Nissa would be his greatest wish and that the only way to achieve that would be for the “beast” to disappear and if he were handsome, he could win her heart.The fairy godmother grants his wish, but let’s him know that if anyone ever found out that he was in fact Benton, he would again return to his life and looks as Benton.Meanwhile, Nissa and the Towns people keep looking for the missing Benton. With his brawn he provides wood for the villagers and his tracking ability, provides fresh meat. When he returns to the Village a few weeks later, he is now Byron, a handsome and slightly built artist. All the young women in the village fawn over him and the Town leaders can’t wait for him to leave town.Nissa is uncomfortable with Byron’s constant attentions since he is so handsome and she is so plain, and she can’t help worry about what has happened to Benton and why would he abandon her without a word.THOUGHTS:Although there were some clever twists to what is a simple beauty and the beast story, I was quite distracted by the too modern speech. If this was a modern retelling, no problem, but this was definitely a primitive village with gossip at the local tavern and firewood for heat. Some of the conversations just didn’t fit with the background.There was a definite message about how we judge people simply by how they look (like that will ever change). Benton was a burly man with scars on his face and body and many of the women whispered of how they would take him to bed if only they could bring a bag for his face. When Benton is transformed to Byron, he comments to Nissa that people don’t look past his face to find out if he has any brains.At first with Nissa believing that Byron is too attractive to be interested in a plain, unattractive girl like herself, I was initially put off by what seemed like Nissa thinking herself good enough for an ugly Benton, but not the handsome Byron. This diminishes her feelings for Benton as only—that’s the best someone like me can have. Later in the story we understand what Nissa has against people who are too attractive.After Benton is returned to his “beastly” self there is more twists to the story and we finally understand the fairy godmother’s interest in Benton and Nissa.Fairy tale based stories are usually not stories that I go for, although some stories have had that basic underlying “don’t just a book by it’s cover” message. This was a decent rewrite with interesting twists if you can ignore some of the too modern conversations.