Customer Reviews

Crazy Beautiful

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In Crazy Beautiful, Lauren Baratz-Logsted revisits Beauty and the Beast, adapting this tale of love and transformation to a present-day setting. First meet the Beast, Lucius, who lost his hands in an explosion of his own doing. As an act of self-punishment and to keep others at a distance, Lucius chooses to live with hooks rather than prosthetic hands. Now meet Aurora, absolutely radiant, not to mention talented, but unhappy after losing her mother. Both new kids at school, they go in different directions: Lucius becomes a brooding loner while Aurora's beauty and clothing instantly attract the popular crowd. Nevertheless, small waves and smiles exchanged between the two quickly add up as Lucius realizes that not even his hooks will scare Aurora away. Together, they learn how to forgive, accept, and love.

To start, the cover of Crazy Beautiful is to die for. The stark contrast of the black and white, the unique font, and the smoke give the cover an edgy look that will instantly attract young adults. This fairy tale retelling is fast-paced, with short, to-the-point chapters. Unlike the original tale, the weight of the story is told from Lucius's point of view. Still, the chapters alternate perspectives, providing the reader with insight from both sides of various situations. Crazy Beautiful is full of raw emotion, as both narrators reveal their fears and insecurities, just like those any teenager tries to hide. Lauren Baratz-Logsted adds a nice touch by complicating the story with the high school's production Grease and Jessup's role as a parallel to Gaston. Though I couldn't pull myself away from this book, I found that the climax resolved itself too quickly. As a result, the end conflict was rather anticlimactic and difficult to believe. Overall, Crazy Beautiful is a well-done modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast that will captivate its readers. 8 of 10.

Crazy Beautiful has one of the most interesting twists on the tale of Beauty and the Beast that I have ever read. And to be honest, if I did not know that this was suppose to be a retelling, I would have never made the connection between the two tales. The novel was very well paced, and highly creative. Told in alternating points of view, the reader really gets to know each character, and it makes the romantic aspect that much more special. There is an emotional connection with the characters possible for the readers, which I find can be quite rare. Throughout the novel, I found myself cheering them on, and wanting things to ultimately work out for the best.

My only complaint about the novel is how realistic Baratz-Logsted tried to make the male perspective. For the most part, there was no doubt that she got Lucius figured out. His narration sounds like some thing a male would say. His actions were that of many males I know. Yet, there were a few scenes that I felt could have been left out completely. I felt like they had no real purpose besides the author trying to convince her readers that she understands the male mind. While not completely distasteful, I just did not see the point to them.

Due to a few questionable scenes, I would not recommend this novel to anyone maybe less than 14 years old. While they do not take away from the novel, I think that some parents might not approve of their children reading that material until they are a bit older to understand it. Despite a few issues, I really liked the novel. It was incredibly creative. I loved Aurora's character, and I felt like Lucius had a lot of redeeming qualities. I think that for a mature reader, this a great retelling that can be read and again.

Hooks serve to repel most people, but there is someone out there for everyone. "Crazy Beautiful" is the unique love story of Lucius, a man who blew his own arms off and replaced them with claws. When Aurora enters his life and is not repulsed by his condition, Lucius is unsure of how to respond. "Crazy Beautiful" is a fun and fast paced love story, very highly recommended.

Ever since the explosion that blew apart his family's home and left him a double amputee, Lucius Wolfe has felt like an outcast from society. His prosthetics remind him daily of all the things he's no longer able to do, and the metal hooks that have replaced his hands brand him as a freak, an outsider. To make it all worse, he's starting over at a new high school, where he knows absolutely no one, and dreads the stares and the whispers that will follow him around once people get a look at his prosthetic arms.

Aurora is also starting over-ever since her mother passed away after a long bout with cancer, she and her father have been trying to rebuild some semblance of a normal life. Unlike Lucius, on her first day at her new high school Aurora is immediately accepted into the popular crowd because of her good looks and warm personality.

Nonetheless, the two strike up an instant connection and must learn to navigate the difficult teenage world of friendship, drama, love, and loss.

Crazy Beautiful is touted as a modern-day, high school retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I can certainly see that, and I think Baratz-Logsted was fairly successful in keeping the traditional story and making it modern at the same time.

I think what I most enjoyed was the humor and wit from our narrators (mostly Lucius), as well as the many references to pop culture and recent events (on the other hands, it will make this book less relevant to future readers). I also liked Lucius' little sister, Misty, who added a great deal of funny to the novel. Aurora, our heroine, was basically the Perfect Teenage Girl, to the point where she seemed highly unrealistic to me and honestly kind of lacked a personality, other than being Good, and Righteous, and Perfect.

Overall I think Crazy Beautiful was just a little bit too predictable for me. All the characters other than Lucius himself were 2-dimensional and fairly stereotypical. I will say that I very much enjoyed Lucius as a narrator, and Baratz-Logsted wrote him as a very honest and wry voice.

I read a lot of glowing reviews for this one, but I found it to be mainly, again, predictable and it kind of just went through the typical cliches present in books about high school and teenagers. In terms of fairy-tale retellings, this wasn't my favorite. Even as a young adult novel on its own, it was fairly tepid and didn't wow me. The romance was to be expected, and that was that.

Crazy Beautiful was a very A-typical love story. Young man, that has lost his arms, finds girl of his dreams. Pretty and perfect girl with tragic background falls for the young man. This utimately was a good story that will keep your attention, but I struggle with the negative feelings of despair that flow throughout this novel. I think this story is a realistic portrait of todays troubled teens. As an adult and a mother this is very troubling to acknowledge the amount of scars today's children must bare. While it is good to step back and look at the big picture this view was wrapped up in a love story. As I said this was a good story, but I find myself ready to move on.

I liked the alternating points of view in this book. I enjoyed the same writing style in Shiver and Perfect Chemistry. I liked both characters, however Lucius is not a "perfect" person. Sure, sure he doesn't have hands but he is flawed. But that's cool. There isn't a lot of time spent between the two main characters. This is a story of them learning each other and accepting each other first. I liked to read about that journey though. I was ok with that. The ending...geesh, was abrupt. I didn't like it at all, but the rest of the 190 some pages of the book is very much worth reading.

How many re-tellings of Beauty and the Beast are on your shelf? Go on, go count them, I can wait.

I can tell you how many I have.

Five.

Five different books, by five different authors to tell me in five different ways how a girl and a beast fall in love. So when I picked up Crazy Beautiful it wasn't because I wanted someone else to tell me how a girl was trapped in a castle by a tormented monster. I already have enough copies of that. But to see how a real life Beauty and a real life Beast can co-exist and fall in love without the need of a wicked witch's spell to bring them together, but their own desires.

Synopsis:

"In an explosion of his own making, Lucius blew his arms off. Now he has hooks. He chose hooks because they were cheaper. He chose hooks because he wouldn't outgrow them so quickly. He chose hooks so that everyone would know he was different, so he would scare even himself.

Then he meets Aurora. The hooks don't scare her. They don't keep her away. In fact, they don't make any difference at all to her. But to Lucius, they mean everything.

They remind him of the beast he is inside. Perhaps Aurora is his Beauty, destined to set his soul free from its suffering.

Or maybe she's just a girl who needs love just like he does. "

Review:

If this book was meant to have been a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, it failed.

But if it was meant for more than that, then I shall give it the praise it so much deserves.

What Crazy Beautiful does is more than just retell the story of the girl and the monster. It tells the story of two lovestruck teenagers. A boy tormented and exiled for the monster he's become, and the girl he can never touch.

What Lauren carries through this book isn't the formula to recreate the fairytale, but the raw emotions that run deep in the story that makes Beauty and the Beast what it is today.

I know what the flap of the book says, I'm just telling you it's a load of bull. This story is too powerful to be marked as just another retelling of an old tale. There's no magic, no enchantment, only the magic of what Lucius and Aurora make out of life, and how they choose to live it. They aren't bogged down to the lifespan of a single red rose, but by their own decisions, their own mistakes.

Crazy Beautiful is really an easy book to read. It's dark, sure, and might even make you question your own actions. But I'd easily recommend it to anyone, with only 208 pages, there's no reason not to read it. Again I'll warn you. Don't dive into this book hoping to see a boy who's own vanity has transformed him into a monster. There are plenty of other books I could recommend for that, but this just isn't it. This is only if you want to enter the mind of a boy who's monstrosity has been created by the society around him, and the one girl that can help him.

A beautiful girl meets a boy with hooks for hands in a modern re-telling of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

I devoured this story. CRAZY BEAUTIFUL is one of those books you want to curl up and read in one sitting. The cover is gorgeous, but I was expecting a more intense story, I think, with older characters. (The characters are 15.) Instead, we get a look at a sweet story of love and friendship between two fractured people.

Lucius experimented with chemicals from school and caused an explosion which cost him his hands. He's chosen hooks and has set himself up to be an outcast at school - which he is, except when it comes to Aurora.

Aurora has recently lost her mother to cancer and now she and her father are starting over in a new town. She's genuinely nice and I really did feel like she was a wonderfully sweet person - she wasn't annoyingly perfect and nice - she was real.

I loved Aurora's relationship with her father - I love seeing strong family dynamics in books and Aurora and her father have a great relationship. This contrasts with Lucius and his parents, who have lost trust in him. Yet, I can't say theirs is a negative family dynamic, as their family is struggling to recover from the accident and it's written so perfectly - you feel their struggle. I really liked the relationship between Lucius and his younger sister, Misty - the scene at the mall is one of my favorite sibling scenes ever!

There's so much in this one - it's a tale of friendship, romance, jealousy, and starting over. It does justice to the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST story and it reads like a lovely fairy tale. It's told in alternating viewpoints with each chapter, and I liked how things from each chapter would bleed over into the next character - both are served orange juice for breakfast, both characters will use the same word. It was very clever and I liked looking for the things that connected them.

I'm most impressed with how author Lauren Baratz-Logsted could manage to say so much without going into great detail. She doesn't need to write long descriptive paragraphs about what's happening. Some chapters are only a few sentences long - but the characters have depth and their relationship is believable.

The only complaint that I have was that I wish it would have been a tad longer - the ending felt a little too rushed. Overall, though, CRAZY BEAUTIFUL is definitely one to look for.

Side note - As a librarian, I really loved how Aurora's dad was a librarian and Aurora was a book lover. It's always good to see librarians get a shout out in books. For some reason, he reminded me of Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which made me smile as I was reading it. Gotta love librarians!

Reviewed by: Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen

I love Beauty and the Beast. I do. I think it is the most romantic story ever alongside Lizzy and Darcy and the Phantom and Christine. I was delighted to pick this book up.

Lucius was one of the most interesting characters that I have ever encountered in YA fiction. I almost wish the whole book would have been in his POV. I felt sort of a kinship with him even though we really have nothing in common. I also really admired how well Baratz-Logsted captured the male POV. I never felt that I was hearing a woman talking through a male character. The only issue is that I also did not quite see him as beastly. He may be a bit of an outcast because of his appearance and his past but he is sweet and gentlemanly in his pursuit of Aurora. Oddly enough, the character I could not connect with at all was Aurora. She was beautiful, intelligent and instantly popular. It took me a few chapters to really start to like her in any significant way.

The only flaws that I could nitpick about this book is I wish it had been longer. I thik the resolution came a bit too quickly and, quite frankly, I want more of this book and more of these characters. Especially Lucius. Needless to say, I hope there is a sequel or continuation of this book because I really loved the story and the characters.

I have to admit that I didn't know much about this book before reading it, I am not sure I even read a review on it. I think I read about it on amazon.com and thought it sounded like an interesting read. I expected boy meets girl, boys has competition aka love triangle, and the drama it takes to get girl...but what I didn't expect...humor...of all things. This book had me busting out laughing at times (and my husband looking at me like I am crazy..but that's another story).

Okay so they say this is the contemporary retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but I am not sure I would have thought of it that way had they not pointed that out. This kid, Lucius, blew off his hands and has two hooks...on top of that, he is starting a new school, how's that for a stressful first day? That is where the humor came in..Lucius has the greatest, although dark and twisty, sense of humor. Some of the things he says and thinks had me cracking up. I love those unexpected surprises. This story is told from alternating view points, Lucius and Aurora, and flows quite well. It is a quick read at only 193 pages, but I recommend it if you want a little humor, romance and drama.