The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold (Hardcover)

~ Francesca Lia Block (Author) "When she was born her mother was so young, still a girl herself, didn't know what to do with her..." (more)
Key Phrases: Rose Red, Rose White, Derrick Blue

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Francesca Lia Block, whose Weetzie Bat novels have often been called pop fairy tales, here turns to the real thing for some very different imaginings of Snow White, Thumbelina, Cinderella, Rose Red and Rose White, and other tales. Block's stories are more resonance than retelling, fevered dreams behind which the outlines of the traditional tales move fitfully like figures glimpsed now and then through a summer fog. Veiled references to Block's own Los Angeles appear in the twisty house of the seven dwarfs built into a canyon like Laurel or Topanga, the redwood forest on a seaside cliff through which Beauty travels to her Beast, the tree-darkened canyon houses with French doors that open onto exuberant neglected gardens lush with irises and roses. In these evocations Bluebeard becomes an aging blue-haired producer, Sleeping Beauty pricks her arm with a heroin needle, Red Riding Hood's wolf is a lecherous stepfather, and the Snow Queen is a sex goddess who lives in a marble mansion with her boy toy, possibly in Beverly Hills. Sensuous images enrich these languid and darkly ironic visions: jasmine-scented night gardens, leopard couches with velvet pillows, luscious food flavored with mint, coconut milk, or pomegranate sauce, cool candlelit baths. As always, Block's poetic allegories of adolescence are strikingly original and a bit dangerous, a feast for connoisseurs of YA fiction and savvy older teens. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell

From Publishers Weekly

Block's (Weetzie Bat) contemporary novels have invariably borrowed elements from classic fairy tales; this time, the author pulls a switch. Setting out to revisit nine fairy tales, she fills her stories with gritty, even headline-grabbing issues. "Charm," for example, features a Sleeping Beauty who embraces the needleDbecause it delivers heroin. In "Bones," a serial killer who names himself Bluebeard is an L.A. hotshot; he throws huge parties and from among the guests selects his victims, rootless girls whose disappearance will attract no attention. One or two stories strain for effect ("Glass," loosely related to Cinderella, tends to belabor the storytelling prowess of its protagonist, whose glass shoes are "made from your words, the stories you have told like a blower with her torch forming the thinnest, most translucent sheets of light out of what was once sand"). But even these entries wield power, and the collection as a whole is close to intoxicating. Rendered in Block's inimitably lush prose, these works are heady, like the thick fragrance of the redolent gardens and perfect roses that figure here. The darkness of these conflicts and subjects proves the strength of the magic she describes: the transfiguring power of love. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen; First Edition edition (September 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060281294
• ISBN-13: 978-0060281298
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,231,836 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For teens and adults, September 16, 2000

By	Heidi Anne Heiner (SurLaLune Fairy Tales.com) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)

This review is from: The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold (Library Binding)

Here is a book reminiscent of Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" and Tanith Lee's "Red As Blood." These retellings of popular fairy tales are placed in modern settings with heroines well-established in the harsh lessons in life. While their experiences can be brutal, the heroines triumph and give hope to their readers. Be warned that these are not the gentler stories of Robin McKinley and Gail Carson Levine. However, Block and fairy tale fans (whether you are one or the other or both!) will enjoy this short story collection.

Nine tales are offered including Little Red Riding Hood ("Wolf"), Beauty and the Beast ("Beast"), Thumbelina ("Tiny"), Bluebeard ("Bones"), Sleeping Beauty ("Charm"), Snow White ("Snow"), Snow Queen ("Ice"), and Cinderella ("Glass").

Readers might also be interested in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling's "Wolf at the Door," Emma Donoghue's "Kissing the Witch," and Donna Jo Napoli's "Zel."

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving and tearjerking novel, December 31, 2000

By	"singingdiva29" (Canada) - See all my reviews

I loved this collection of retold fairytales with heroines who deal with today issues like abusive fathers(in the story Wolf)as well as bringing to life the sorrows and triumphs in each woman's story. I loved this book...some of the stories were so moving that I cried. I would not recommend this novel for children under thirteen because the book deals with heroin, swearing and even a little rape. The book was one of the best that I've ever read, and if you are debating the issue of buying it, don't hesitate.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical Retelling of Fairy Tales, January 18, 2004

By	Katharina Woodworth "aquafemina" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Rose and The Beast: Fairy Tales Retold (Paperback)

I found Francesca Lia Block quite by accident. I was looking online to see what Suza Scalora (one of my favorite artist/photographers) had illustrated - to see if she had published any other books (in addition to her Fairies and other book) - and I noticed she had illustrated the front cover of The Rose and the Beast (it's a gorgeous photo illustration, by the way).

This collection of "fairy tales retold" by Block was intriguing. I have long been retelling fairy tales in a weird and twisted way, so I was naturally curious as to how Block treated it, and wondered if she was a "sister spirit" in writing. Reading about Block, I noticed she was placed by publishers in a strange liminal zone where she wasn't quite treated as a writer for an adult audience (fairy tales are always treated as childish in the Western world), but she was too dark and real for children. She now has a very avid fandom of young adult females.

The Rose and the Beast had some dark adult undercurrents in its pages, but nothing too horrifying for women coming-of-age. Inside her pages are stories of Sleeping Beauty pricking herself with heroin needles, Bluebeard the serial killer and Little Red Riding Hood's Wolf as a child molester and wife-beater. Many of the other stories were less intense - but frankly, I liked the stories that touched upon the more violent and sadistic side of society better. There was something more satisfying about them.

I found "Wolf" to be very suspenseful and intriguing - it had a genius quality - a story that flowed so easily it seemed the author wrote it quickly and in a deep trance. The voice of the narrator was very raw - it seemed honest and real. One paragraph reads: "I don't know what else I said, but I do know that he started laughing at me, this hideous tooth laugh, and I remembered him above me in that bed with his clammy hand on my mouth and his ugly ugly weight and me trying to keep hanging on because I wouldn't let him take my mom away, that was the one thing he could never do and now he had..." (p. 127-128)

"Bones" was another one of the stories I just loved. It begins with "I dreamed of being a part of the stories-even the terrifying ones, even horror stories-because at least the girls in stories were alive before they died." (p. 153) Bones continues with "We were all over his house. On the floor and the couches and tables and beds. He had music blasting from speakers everywhere and I let it take me like when I was at shows, thrashing around, losing the weight of who I was - the self-consciousness and anxiety, to the sound. He said, You're so tiny, like a doll, you look like you might break. I wanted him to break me. Part of me did. He said, I can make you whatever you want to be. I wanted him to. But what did I want to be?"

As you continue to read, you discover that "Derrick Blue" is a modern-day Bluebeard, collecting bones in deranged, serial killer fashion...And the story gains in suspense while you root for the female narrator to escape his Casanova clutches.

Block ends her book with a punch in her story "Ice". It first reads: "She came that night like every girl's worst fear, dazzling frost star ice queen. Tall and with that long silver blond hair and a flawless face, a perfect body in white crushed velvet and a diamond snowflake tiara." How many hordes of young women can relate to their hearts getting run over as the men (or boys) they love fall for an "ice queen"?

Block's genius is that she writes in a down-to-earth, yet metaphorical fashion for her readership: the young female. She finds the archetypal themes still threading through contemporary society and shines light on them, while catching a raw and honest young woman's voice, as if in snapshot.

About the only weak link that I found was her story Charm. I got a little lost in Charm and wasn't always certain - or interested - in what was happening. It could have been my mind-state at the time however, and the other stories were well worth it, so I should give Charm another chance.

I'm now another fan of Francesca Lia Block, for her modern-day risks in lyricism, her magical realism, her metaphorical, mythical themes, her archetypal yet fleshed out characters...Since The Rose and the Beast is divvied into 9 stories, her book is both a fast intriguing read, and one you can easily put down if you are interrupted constantly by a busy lifestyle. The book is definitely worth buying, and in this case, you can tell a book by its cover!