Here are 100 books that Beastly fans have personally recommended if you like
Beastly.
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I have always been interested in feminine culture and how we move through loss & disappointment, build self-worth, find beauty, make and keep friendships, handle family strife, love the natural world, and value a rich imagination. I love creating fantasy worlds. My fantasy world is fueled by a lifetime of lucid dreaming and a group of animal spirits who always find a place in my stories. Music is my lifelong passion and profession, so original songs are a part of my storytelling package. I am steeped in the expression of the many facets of being a girl and practiced at the myriad of ways to explore them creatively.
I was quickly captivated by the story of Princess Ani and her magical gift of animal speak. I related to her insecurity of being an outcast, feeling different, and finding refuge within the natural world. Her fast-paced story engages with both colorful and menacing characters as she confronts parental conflict, loss, betrayal, and true love.
Inspirational to read as she faced these challenging obstacles and evolved into self-acceptance, realizing that her differences and gifts were actually her greatest allies. This story explores bonds to animals and nature, parental conflict, betrayal, determination, insecurities around being different, acceptance, and listening to one’s inner voice.
In this beloved first book in the Books of Bayern, from New York Times bestselling author Shannon Hale, Princess Ani must become a goose girl before she can become queen.
Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, spends the first years of her life listening to her aunt's stories and learning the language of the birds, especially the swans. As she grows up, Ani develops the skills of animal speech, but she never feels quite comfortable speaking with people.
So when Ani's mother sends her away to be married in a foreign land, she finds herself at the mercy of…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’ve been writing fantasy since I was a very young child. My need to escape a world that I viewed with fear was satiated by writing worlds that gave me control over how I could create and master them. I would read books that I adored but wanted to implement changes to better fit my own personal feelings and perception. For example, unicorns were terrifying creatures in my head, so I gave them fire-covered horns and eyes of flames. Nothing in the world felt pure or safe to me, so I write in a way that gives a dark twist to any and all mythological creatures and magical realms.
Be careful what you say out loud. You never know who might hear you.
In this story, you have a cruel and harsh Staryk lord with only care for his silver to be turned to gold. He’s cold and indifferent to the one he appoints to this seemingly impossible task, yet you find yourself clinging to hope he will change.
There are multiple POV, so if this is your thing, trust me you’ll love how many are in here. It’s like getting multiple thrilling stories in one book. Redeemable monsters is how I would label this book in two words if I had to.
Following her award-winning novel Uprooted, Naomi Novik has once again been influenced by classic folktales. Taking Rumpelstiltskin as her starting point, Spinning Silver is rich, original and a joy to read.
Will dark magic claim their home? Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father's too kind-hearted to collect his debts. They face poverty, until Miryem hardens her own heart and takes up his work in their village. Her success creates rumours she can turn silver into gold, which attract the fairy king of winter himself. He sets her an impossible challenge - and if she fails,…
My debut novel is a Beauty and the Beast retelling because I’ve been obsessed with fairy tales all my life, and I’m thrilled to share some of my favorite retellings with you! When I was a child, my grandma gave me an illustrated collection of fairy tales. She had grown up reading stories from Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers, and she wanted to share that with me. It was an interest I gladly adopted. I love seeing my favorite fairy tales told with new twists and elements that bring the stories to life all over again and let me fall in love with them one more time.
This is a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses which actually keeps all twelve princesses in the cast.
You would think so many characters would overwhelm the story (or the reader), but the author manages to balance them all gracefully and makes you hope they’ll each have their own stories in the future (two of them do).
This book made my heart pound repeatedly as I worried about the rising stakes, and the pages simply flew by. It was delightful from start to finish.
Rose is one of twelve princesses forced to dance through the night in an underground palace. The key to breaking the spell lies in magic knitting needles, an invisibility cloak, and-of course-true love. Inspired by "The Twelve Dancing Princesses,"this novel is as captivating as it is fresh. Enchanted readers are sure to clamor for the new companion, Princess of Glass, also publishing this season.
Mia Lark is running out of options. There is only one way to change the score: the fantasy planet Revivium.
Armed with the powerful magic in the helm and the friendly AI, Hex that goes with it, Mia throws caution out the window. It’s time to find the main guildhall…
My debut novel is a Beauty and the Beast retelling because I’ve been obsessed with fairy tales all my life, and I’m thrilled to share some of my favorite retellings with you! When I was a child, my grandma gave me an illustrated collection of fairy tales. She had grown up reading stories from Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers, and she wanted to share that with me. It was an interest I gladly adopted. I love seeing my favorite fairy tales told with new twists and elements that bring the stories to life all over again and let me fall in love with them one more time.
Gail Carson Levine has been one of my favorite authors all my life. She and my maternal grandmother are jointly responsible for my deep obsession with fairy tales.
While Ella Enchanted is more well known, Fairest is my favorite of her fairy tale novels. It’s a Snow White retelling that made me truly fall in love with the main character. Aza’s insecurities felt real to me, and I loved the twist that she is not fairest in all the land because of looks but, rather, because of her voice.
This story breaks me down and builds me back up again. I’ve reread it many times and intend to reread it many more.
Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted to be pretty ...Aza's singing is the fairest in all the land, and the most unusual. She can "throw" her voice so it seems to come from anywhere. But singing is only one of the two qualities prized in the Kingdom of Ayortha. Aza doesn't possess the other: beauty. Not even close. She's hidden in the shadows in her parents' inn, but when she becomes lady-in-waiting to the new queen, she has to step into the light-especially when the queen demands a dangerous favor. A magic mirror, a charming prince,…
I vividly remember the first time a book transported me—it was in Mrs. Paul’s second-grade math class, and I was reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader under the desk. It carried me away to a different world. I’ve been looking for that same magic in every book since, hoping to fall into a picture or open a wardrobe door to another place and time. This list contains a few of my favorites, the stories that have earned permanent spots on my shelves, the ones that get pulled down when I need some enchantment in my life. (And don’t we all need a little magic these days?)
Its allegiance shifts and changes over time. To hold it, Houses of Magic put on an epic tournament at every Turning, where their best and brightest act as champions in battle. But what the champions don’t know, because their elders have never taught them, is that the magic itself draws from a dark source, and that source is crumbling.
Powerful magician Sydney has emerged from The House of Shadows to fight for a sponsor who wishes to establish his own house. But Sydney has first-hand experience with the darkness.
And she doesn’t want to help restore the establishment. She wants to burn it to the ground.
"A remarkable writer." -Neil Gaiman, bestselling author of American Gods
An Alex Award Winner
There is a dark secret that is hiding at the heart of New York City and diminishing the city's magicians' power in this fantasy thriller by acclaimed author Kat Howard.
In New York City, magic controls everything. But the power of magic is fading. No one knows what is happening, except for Sydney-a new, rare magician with incredible power that has been unmatched in decades, and she may be the only person who is able to stop the darkness that is weakening the magic.…
Fantasy has always been a passion and an escape for me. It started with copious amounts of reading, then I found anime when I was only a child as Cardcaptors began to air on TV. I’ve watched hundreds of anime shows since then and continued my penchant for reading and writing almost exclusively in the fantasy genre. In college, I obtained a BA in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing, so I have a good grasp on literature analysis and many works. In addition, I studied Japanese for two years, lived in Japan for six months, and held a position at the anime club while I was in college.
Valiant is a great example of why I love the morally gray so much. Like in many anime, the characters are all shown to be dysfunctional to some degree and really stand by their choices with a good amount of agency that I adore. The MC’s loss and addiction make her a relatable lead as she struggles to navigate this dark, mysterious underworld she has ended up in. As with the anime Kakegurui, her and her friends’ addictions skew their judgment and make everyone susceptible to influence if they can get what they desire. The love interest was my favorite part of this book. He is rough, but he knows what he’s talking about and helps guide the MC to a better path.
A companion novel to Tithe, from bestselling author Holly Black!
When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system.
But there's something eerily beguiling about Val's new friends. And when one talks Val into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature with whom they are all involved, Val finds herself torn between her newfound affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends…
Winner of the 2024 New Mexico - Arizona Book Award.
In this deeply researched novel of America's most celebrated outlaw, Mark Warren sheds light on the human side of Billy the Kid and reveals the intimate stories of the lesser-known players in his legendary life of crime. Warren's fictional composer…
My novel choices were part of the Afterschool Literacy & Building Modules for an organization called LitShop. It encourages growth in literacy, making, building, and leadership in girls ages 10-15 in St. Louis, Missouri. I’m honored to lead the writing classes. All of the LitShop books feature strong girls who believe they can make and build their way to a better world, and I aim to include similar characters in my stories. Stories can provide us with motivation, inspiration, and companionship, and all of these books have done just that… for the girls of LitShop as well as myself.
Before reading this book, I had no idea city-based fantasy novels could draw me in as powerfully as stories with more “traditional” fantasy settings. But Mr. Older’s depiction of Brooklyn as a living, breathing landscape made me a new believer in urban magic. And the main character Sierra’s shadowshaping feels like its own form of beautiful, youthful rebellion. Art can save us, if only we breathe our power into it. I stop and stare at most graffiti murals now, waiting for them to move a little.
Sierra Santiago planned an easy summer of making art and hanging with her friends. But then a corpse crashes the first party of the season. Her stroke-ridden grandfather starts apologizing over and over. And when the murals in her neighborhood begin to weep real tears . . . Well, something more sinister than the usual Brooklyn ruckus is going on.
Where the powers converge and become one
With the help of a fellow artist named Robbie, Sierra discovers shadowshaping, a thrilling magic that infuses ancestral spirits into paintings, music, and stories. But…
I write fantasy novels, specifically ones in the sub-genre of magical realism. It’s been a passion since my early days. When I was a professional playwright, before I turned to novel writing, I had the extraordinary opportunity to work with Ray Bradbury in adapting one of his novels for the stage. It was an immersion in that delicious blend of the uncanny and the tender. After experiencing a number of losses, I found that this genre—along with the marriage of magic, the supernatural, and hope—best expressed my discoveries and beliefs about life. The novels I write are ones that I would want to read. The novels I recommend are ones I wish I’d written!
This is a great adventure with high stakes, both for the world and for the main character.
She is an ordinary person who rises to the moment again and again when she must. She’s scared, but she’s brave. She’s resilient and clever. She’s really lovable.
In this novel, magic suffuses the world through a secret society. And the power is in books. I mean, we all know the power of books, right? And here, as in Addie LaRue, magic has consequences. It can be beautiful and create lovely connections between and among people. And it can also wreak untold destruction.
Bottom line, I loved the concept and the characters equally.
Stories of people impacted by the criminal justice system have been key to my understanding of the system and my efforts to reform it. I knew I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer when, in law school, I represented a woman who was raped by a corrections officer in a federal prison in Connecticut. My experiences suing the police and corrections officers as a young lawyer in New York inspired 15+ years researching the realities of civil rights litigation and barriers to achieve justice. I believe that the best way to understand the realities of the criminal justice system is through the experiences of people trying to make their way through it.
Ted Conover, a journalist, wanted to better understand life as a corrections officer.
After Conover’s request to shadow a recruit at the New York State Corrections Officer Academy was denied, he decided to apply to become a corrections officer himself—and was hired.
Conover spent a year working as a corrections officer at Sing Sing, and his insights about the chaos, lack of training, and harsh culture at the institution—and the impact that serving as a corrections officer had on him psychologically and on relationships with his loved ones—were eye-opening.
After he was denied access to report on Sing Sing, one of America's most notorious high security jails, journalist Ted Conover applied to become a prison guard. As a rookie officer, or 'newjack', Conover spent a year in the unpredictable, intimidating and often violent world of America's penal system.
Unarmed and outnumbered, prison officers at one of America's toughest maximum security jails supervise 1,800 inmates, most of whom have been convicted of violent felonies: murder, manslaughter, rape. Prisoners conceal makeshift weapons to settle gang rivalries or old grudges, and officers are often attacked or caught in the crossfire. When violence…
Ramon Ramirez’s Dog is a collection of essays written over the years about the adventures and misadventures, mostly outside but occasionally inside the diplomatic career of a U.S. ambassador. Common threads weaving the stories together are a desire for a life well-lived, balancing career with family and friends, keeping physically…
I have an unusual personal history. I majored in math in college and aspired to a life as a scientist. However, the civil rights movement and other events of the 1960s and 1970s inspired me to switch and earn a doctorate in sociology. (Which considers itself a science.) My first faculty position, at Yale beginning in 1972, involved a joint appointment in the Sociology Department and the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, which focused on public policy. During the remainder of my career I have worked and published together with economists and sought to do research that uses the perspectives of both fields.
This book by sociologist Newman provides an ideal mix of statistical data with in-depth interviews with a group of low-wage workers, describing how their employment and life conditions changed over time.
We come to know these people, to understand what it is like to be employed in a low-wage job, and how it is possible but not easy for them to move up to better-paying jobs.
Now that the welfare system has been largely dismantled, the fate of America's poor depends on what happens to them in the low-wage labour market. In this timely volume, Katherine S. Newman explores whether the poorest workers and families benefited from the tight labour markets and good economic times of the late 1990s. Following black and Latino workers in Harlem, who began their work lives flipping burgers, she finds more good news than we might have expected coming out of a high-poverty neighbourhood. Many adult workers returned to school and obtained trade certificates, high school diplomas and college degrees. Their…
