Hmm I didn’t even realize it until I started writing reviews but this is, actually, the third Beauty and the Beast retelling I read in a row. What can I say? It is clearly my favorite type of fairy tale, imprinted upon me due to my youthful love of the Disney classic. When your other choices are “sleeps for the best parts (x2),” “wears a shoe,” “gives up her entire world for the dude,” it’s not surprising that Belle “I read and yell back and have brown hair” LastName is usually the winner.
I enjoyed this story but not nearly as much as I thought I would, given the double whammy of Beauty and the Beast and Hades and Persephone. I’ve enjoyed other magic/castles type AUs of the Star Wars universe, but here I found the recasting of Kylo/Ben’s character to be a bit…too easy. It’s most interesting when there’s a proper redemption arc, in my opinion, whereas here the curse/binding element somewhat absolves our villain of his free will. Why does one need to forgive if the terrible deeds were done at magical coercion entered into by a teenager not fully in possession of their emotional intelligence?
Like many stories that involve a part in a small bubble that then, for whatever reason, gets popped, I enjoyed the parts in the bubble slightly more than the parts in the greater world–think Harry Potter and the Book Where They Were In a Forest For Months vs Harry Potter and the Book Where There Was a Mystery Within the Walls of Hogwarts (x6). I will commend the author for feeding their reader exactly what they wanted with the ending–i.e., an extended epilogue that lets you see how many of the threads that had been started finally ended.