Beauty

Rating:
Summary: BRAVA!
Review: "Beauty" is a life changing book for me. Not only do I love her story, but it steered me in the direction of actually reading fairy tales again. They tended to just hang there in my consciousness throughout my life, but I tended to not really understand them, or care. But in reading other stories of re-written fairy tales like the books edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and on to "Women Who Run with the Wolves", I learned to start to understand being a woman through myth and story, and fairy tales. "Beauty" has changed me, made me think differently..but then all of Sheri's books have done that. I recommend "Beauty" for the beauty of it. 100 stars! I love you're words Sheri, you're books are incredible. Thank you for sharing them with the world.

Rating:
Summary: "Beauty" will make you think
Review: "Beauty" is firstly a clever reweaving of several traditional fairy tales into one coherent story.It is alternately funny, ironic and horrifying and finishes with an ending that I found wonderfully optimistic and hopeful just when it seemed that Beauty, surely one of the best but most unfortunate heroines had no chances left whatever. For me however, what lifts this book out of the ordinary is the strong clear voice of the author on overpopulation and the current craze for horror fiction. As I am an extensive reader of horror novels, Ms Teppers thoughts on how we are becoming desensitized to cruelty and brutality and the way this is contributing to the disappearance of magic and beauty in our lives really had an impact on me. I recommend "Beauty" both as a very entertaining read but also as that rare thing, a book that makes you actually think about important issues without feeling as if you are being preached at.

Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking!
Review: A wonderful new twist on the sleeping beauty story. As in all of Tepper's books, the emphasis is on the strength and ingenuity of the women characters. I think this is her best book ever, and maybe the best book I've ever read. I recommend it to any sci-fi, fantasy, or feminist fan.

Rating:
Summary: A controversial book
Review: After reading the reviews, it is obvious that this is one of those books on which opinions are divided. There is no middle ground. People either love it or hate it.

I have to confess, I'm one of those who loves it. I thought it was a beautiful book with a very strong, if not positive message. Beauty is the daughter of a noble and she lives in fifteenth century Britain. She runs away from home and, barely a day after, blunders into a film crew from the far-off future who are making a documentary about that time. Not wanting to leave a witness, they kidnap her and she is taken into the future: a harsh, overpopulated world where the food is nutrients packed into a bar, and people live in an area 100 feet square. It would be too ambitious to outline the whole plot; it is too convoluted and complicated, with journeys back and forth through time, and in and out of various fairy tales. Needless to say, Beauty has a hand in all of them; in fact, the original Cinderella is her daughter.

Though I don't necessarily agree with her picture of the future, I think that Beauty portrays a very real message. I agree with what some of the reviews have said: Beauty (the character) remains cold and distant. You don't really get to know her because the book is formatted through diary entries which, far from pouring her heart out, are basically the pure facts. However, I think this fits in with the mood of the book.
I think that it is really clever the way the author has intertwined most of the well-known fairy tales with the plot, with some strange twists: Cinderella is a bitchy and selfish girl, Snow white is a dumb blonde, etc.

The land of the faerys was accurate with most legends of the faerys. I can never like them. They are selfish and manipulative and care nothing for the lives of mere mortals of the likes of us. Time travels differently in faery land, so seven years in faery land could pass as a hundred in the real world, which makes an ending nothing short of tragic.

I don't know who to reccomend this book to; it seems that you either like it or you don't. This was my second Tepper book, the first was the Gate to Women's country. I didn't like it much, but I fininshed it and for some reason I decided to read Beauty. Then I started a Plague of angels, but was too bored to finish it. So I think that this is the best of her books, and anyone who likes fantasy should try it, even if it's for just another opinion.

Rating:
Summary: A controversial book
Review: After reading the reviews, it is obvious that this is one of those books on which opinions are divided. There is no middle ground. People either love it or hate it.

I have to confess, I'm one of those who loves it. I thought it was a beautiful book with a very strong, if not positive message. Beauty is the daughter of a noble and she lives in fifteenth century Britain. She runs away from home and, barely a day after, blunders into a film crew from the far-off future who are making a documentary about that time. Not wanting to leave a witness, they kidnap her and she is taken into the future: a harsh, overpopulated world where the food is nutrients packed into a bar, and people live in an area 100 feet square. It would be too ambitious to outline the whole plot; it is too convoluted and complicated, with journeys back and forth through time, and in and out of various fairy tales. Needless to say, Beauty has a hand in all of them; in fact, the original Cinderella is her daughter.

Though I don't necessarily agree with her picture of the future, I think that Beauty portrays a very real message. I agree with what some of the reviews have said: Beauty (the character) remains cold and distant. You don't really get to know her because the book is formatted through diary entries which, far from pouring her heart out, are basically the pure facts. However, I think this fits in with the mood of the book.
I think that it is really clever the way the author has intertwined most of the well-known fairy tales with the plot, with some strange twists: Cinderella is a bitchy and selfish girl, Snow white is a dumb blonde, etc.

The land of the faerys was accurate with most legends of the faerys. I can never like them. They are selfish and manipulative and care nothing for the lives of mere mortals of the likes of us. Time travels differently in faery land, so seven years in faery land could pass as a hundred in the real world, which makes an ending nothing short of tragic.

I don't know who to reccomend this book to; it seems that you either like it or you don't. This was my second Tepper book, the first was the Gate to Women's country. I didn't like it much, but I fininshed it and for some reason I decided to read Beauty. Then I started a Plague of angels, but was too bored to finish it. So I think that this is the best of her books, and anyone who likes fantasy should try it, even if it's for just another opinion.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite book ever!
Review: As I was browsing in a used bookstore one day, I was attracted to this book by the cover and the simple title. Over the past 10 years, I have gone back to this book again and again. I fall in love every time! The romance between Beauty and Giles is one of the most beautiful I have read anywhere. I am fascinated by time travel, fairy tales, and the struggle to discover identity, and Tepper skillfully weaves all these and more into a simply wonderful story. After reading this, I went out and looked for her other books, but the only one I would recommend beyond Beauty is "A Plague of Angels". My only caveat: some of Tepper's ideas are very liberal, but don't let that stop you from discovering this priceless book.

Rating:
Summary: A refreshing version of a loved fairytale
Review: Beauty is nothing short of a work of art. The story, the script, the language, it all comes together to explain humanity in every sense of the word. Society is shaped by believing in what one cannot see, while disbelieving that which is apparent to the naked eye.
This is clearly one of Tepper's best works.

Rating:
Summary: my first Tepper
Review: Beauty was my first Sheri Tepper book, and I have been hooked ever since. The only reason I would give Beauty only four stars was because I liked some of her other novels even better, such as Gibbon's Decline and Fall, The Gate to Women's Country and Family Tree, among others.
Tepper always astounds me with her main plot device, the revelation of an almost horrific yet glorious truth about the world (the fictional one in the novel.) There is a profound betrayal of humanity set simultaneously with a triumph of hope for humanity. In Beauty this is the complete death of magic, including the beauty of life, to be followed (or preceded) by "saving" all that was beautiful in the world.
If you do not like your first Tepper, I believe it is unlikely you will enjoy any of them, however, if you read one and are blown away, you will love them all.

Rating:
Summary: You need to read this book!
Review: BEAUTY was one of my favorite books. I'm a 15yr. old and not that many people that are my age read novels. I have already read it about six times and I enjoy reading it over and over again. Beauty had a heart to help out her daughter that she had forceably given birth to. She had to battle the Dark Lord with everything that she could and she wanted to love the mother she found that was never there for her. Beauty is throughout the book in love with Giles. She never stops loving him through thick and thin. I especialy liked the ending. It was a great book!

Rating:
Summary: One of my top 3 favorite books
Review: Definitely a must-read. A retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story with an environmental/time-travel twist. I have read this book no less than 5 times and will continue reading it again and again.