Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Beast
AUTHOR: Jamie Sullivan
PUBLISHER: Less Than Three Press
LENGTH: 113 pages
RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2018
BLURB:
The very last thing Beau expects to land on his desk is the story of the year: the location of the missing scumbag rockstar Gabriel Fletcher. Eager for the chance at a story that could make his career, he heads off immediately for the remote mansion where Gabriel is rumored to be hiding. But the questions he seeks to ask bring answers he never could have expected…
REVIEW:
When a famous fairy tale like Beauty and the Beast is retold, it needs to hold onto the original message while adding a new, fresh twist that will keep readers wanting more. Beast gives us a nice glimpse of what the tale could’ve been with two men, and the romance itself brings the heat, but it strays a little too far from the magic and message of the story we know and love.
The story follows our expectations a little too closely, but at the same time, it doesn’t really support the same message of “beauty on the inside will prevail on the outside.” The first three-fourths of the story are pretty much scene-for-scene Beauty and the Beast—the captivity, the slow thawing of the “beast’s” heart, the “beauty’s” escape and return. But at the end, when we’re supposed to get Gabriel’s real redemption, when his curse can be truly lifted…it falls really flat. The reason for his curse and the way the curse is broken are pretty weak, and the characters get a happily-ever-after without tying up a lot of glaring loose ends and making them see themselves for who they really are. The pre-“beast” Gabriel is pretty nasty, and just because he falls for Beau doesn’t mean we fall for him.
Despite these storytelling flaws, the real root of my dislike for this story comes from the misogyny. I found it surprising, since the author seems to have a pretty diverse writing career with a lot of great female characters. If a person’s ugliness comes from their misogyny (which is the case with Gabriel Fletcher), their redemption needs to follow that vein. Having sex with an attractive man and falling in love with him doesn’t really redeem his gross, rude past with women. If his past one-night stand exploits included all genders, I could see where the message was coming from. But his bad qualities stem purely from his mistreatment of women, and a few apologetic lines at the end can’t make up for that. We’re even supposed to see the evil woman who cursed him as out of line, which is ridiculous, since her plan was silly anyways, and Gabriel totally deserved it.
In the end, I don’t think this is a very solid re-telling. It’s too broad and too short to really get us invested. I didn’t like the way women were treated in the story—on a character level and in the broader scheme of things. The love scenes and the post-“beast” talks between Gabriel and Beau show the author’s romance-writing capabilities well, but other than that, this one can be safely skipped.
RATING: 
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