Rating: 
Summary: Heart-wrenching
Review: This book is on my top-10 list for sure. I am
a huge Sheri Tepper fan, but Beauty goes above
and beyond what I'm used to even from her.
Take your basic tragic fairytale and make it
come alive by mixing in modern (and future)
life, a charming protagonist, a cat that
really DOES have 9 lives, and a series of
events that make you wish you could jump into
the book yourself and help Beauty out.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful journey...
Review: This book takes you on a wonderful, and sometimes frightening, journey. The portrayal of the 20th C and the future through the main character's eyes will make most readers cringe. Well crafted, at times uplifting and at others deeply saddening, this book will challenge you.I'd especially recommend this novel for those between 12-18 years of age, although adults will enjoy it too.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and imaginative, unlike anything i've ever read!
Review: This book was very interesting because it was so...different. I'd never read anything like it. It's not often you read a book about Sleeping Beauty giving birth to Cinderella, who has a daughter that it Snow White, who then concieves the well-known frog prince. The story is not only a crazy medieval tale but it also takes place in the future, or at least parts of it does. The main character, Beauty, has the power to time travel. This novel is one like "Fahrenheit 451" By Ray Bradbury because it makes u think about what our world is coming to. F451, in case u havent read it takes place in the future when book banning has been taken to such an extreme that not one is allowed to own books. Because, the government reasons, if people read books they become individuals, and then they try to change things that they don't like. This type of future is similar to the one Beauty visits, where people hardly live lives of freedom. But Beauty, unlike F451, has more of a fantasy touch to it. The basic moral of "Beauty" is that the beauty of the earth must be preserved so that it does not become something we regret. And at the end of the novel, just like in F451, a small flicker of hope is presented that maybe everything will turn out ok. The overall story is wonderful and imaginative, i trully enjoyed reading it. The only reason i gave it a 4 out of 5 is because a few points in the story were boring between the action. i recommend it though none the less.
Rating:
Summary: great book!
Review: This book was very moving for me, there are many twists and turns and it took me a few times of reading it to actually figure out what was going on. But I loved it and have read it many times and enjoy it every time I read it. It's like every single fairy tale you were told as a kid combined into a wonderful story that puts it all together for you!
Rating:
Summary: . it will leave echoes .
Review: This book will have you experiencing flashbacks years after you finish reading it. In the words of another reviewer, "This book is a marvel."
Rating:
Summary: Beauty
Review: This is my favourite book of Sheri S. Tepper's. Part fairy tale, part an ecological disaster story, the action takes us from the invented Middle Ages of "Sleeping Beauty" to a dark future. Beauty is no ordinary fairy tale heroine, she isn't waiting vainly for her prince to rescue her, she takes life by the throat and survives on her wits. The charcters were well fleshed out and the narrative just made you want to keep on reaing to see what happens next. I actually finished the book in one sitting, I just couldn't put it down.
Rating: 
Summary: A promising idea sunk in propaganda
Review: This is the third of Sheri Tepper's books that I have read, each of them on someone's assurance that I really will love this one. Unfortunately, Ms. Tepper is all too obviously an author with an axe to grind. In this case she tries to take on burgeoning technology, overpopulation, environmental concerns, and the general ugliness of human nature. Not that any of these are not valid concerns or suitable literary topics, but the author's purpose is put forth so shrilly that the effect on this reader was counterproductive. Which is a shame, because the basic conceit is quite good. Apart from one wildly irrelevant excursion into an imaginary world where Beauty finds her mother, the weaving together of the fairy tales "Sleeping Beauty," "Cinderella," "Snow White," "Tam Lin," and "The Frog Prince" with trips to the future and to Faerie is well-handled, and often surprisingly humorous, although the humor can often be more than a little savage. Sheri Tepper is a gifted writer with clear abilities. I only wish she would focus more on writing stories and less on writing political diatribes.
Rating:
Summary: my first Tepper
Review: This novel meanders all over the place. One moment you're in a fairy tale setting, the next you're in a bleak Solyent Green-esque future, then you're in the faery world, then you're back in the future, then you're whisked away to a modern setting, and so forth. Tepper never bothers to develop any of these worlds; we're only given brief sketches of them. We don't know anything about the future world she's created, except that it's bleak, and borrows heavily from science fiction dystopia cliches; little flavorless bars for food, cramped living space, et cetera. I also never really felt like I got to know any of the characters...even Beauty. She somehow manages to remain distant and two-dimensional even through the first person narrative. The author also uses a device which I tend to dislike, and which is very hard to do right; the diary-form. How likely is it that Beauty would pause to write a diary-entry right after being raped? This might have worked better as a third-person story. As it is, we only experience things through Beauty's eyes, so we're given a very narrow field of vision...which is death to a sci-fi/fantasy novel. I never *saw* anything that was happening. There isn't nearly enough dialogue and action; therefore, there's no sense of immediacy. Everything, even the brutal rape scene, feels flat and stale. This is probably my least favorite Tepper novel. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, while didactic and heavy-handed, at least had some coherence.
Rating: 
Summary: A sprawling mess.
Review: This novel meanders all over the place. One moment you're in a fairy tale setting, the next you're in a bleak Solyent Green-esque future, then you're in the faery world, then you're back in the future, then you're whisked away to a modern setting, and so forth. Tepper never bothers to develop any of these worlds; we're only given brief sketches of them. We don't know anything about the future world she's created, except that it's bleak, and borrows heavily from science fiction dystopia cliches; little flavorless bars for food, cramped living space, et cetera. I also never really felt like I got to know any of the characters...even Beauty. She somehow manages to remain distant and two-dimensional even through the first person narrative. The author also uses a device which I tend to dislike, and which is very hard to do right; the diary-form. How likely is it that Beauty would pause to write a diary-entry right after being raped? This might have worked better as a third-person story. As it is, we only experience things through Beauty's eyes, so we're given a very narrow field of vision...which is death to a sci-fi/fantasy novel. I never *saw* anything that was happening. There isn't nearly enough dialogue and action; therefore, there's no sense of immediacy. Everything, even the brutal rape scene, feels flat and stale. This is probably my least favorite Tepper novel. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, while didactic and heavy-handed, at least had some coherence.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting ideas, but poorly written
Review: Though this book had a somewhat interesting plot, I ultimately disliked it. The basic idea behind the book is that beauty in the world is dying, which, in my opinion, would only make a good book if written very delicately. Instead, I found the scenarios the author portrayed not only disturbing but extremely unbelievable, even for a fantasy. The book is in bad need of some better transitions from setting to setting, and it really combined all too many fairy tales and ideas to read smoothly. (Others have praised Beauty for containing so many other fairy tales, but in my opinion they only made the story even less feasible.) I usually like unusual books and I read lots of fantasy, so I was surprised that I disliked this book when so many other people enjoyed it. All-in-all, though, Beauty was a strange book, and ultimately not worth the effort.
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