Bookish and the Beast

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: Bookish and the Beast

Bookish and the Beast is a geeky retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I picked this up to take a break from the heavier themed books I've been reading. This is a light-hearted, easy-to-read young adult novel. And the geekiness Once Upon a Con is known for, shines just as bright in this latest installment.

Rosie's life inexplicably changed when her mother passed away. College looms over her head as high school days are swiftly coming to an end, but she doesn't know what to do. She feels lost, drifting through each day. Until an accident leaves her face to face with Vance Reigns, the actor for General Sond in the newest Starfield movie. And while it might have once been her dream to meet him, the reality is he is a jerk.

Once Upon a Con does such a wonderful job portraying how fandom brings people together and helps them through life's hardest times. Rosie loves Starfield and the memories it brings of her mother. And true to style, it also shows the flip side of the fandom. This time readers will witness how the tabloids can bring an actor down. Vance deals with the pressures of gossip and poor choices made public.

I wouldn't say this is the best retelling, but Vance's behavior towards Rosie can certainly be described as beastly. Some may say he was too harsh, but Vance is in a difficult spot and angry at the world. I thought his part to play as the beast was great. However, I did expect more of a gradual decline in his behavior as the two began to know one another. It seemed rather abrupt when he went from the beast to realizing his mistakes and trying to be better.

I was not entirely comfortable with the portrayal of Gaston. Garret constantly pursues Rosie about homecoming despite her telling him no multiple times. While she stood her ground, there were moments where she felt she had to go with him. Why? If she doesn't want to go, and she has made it clear to the boy and her friends it is a no, why internalize saying yes? It was a mixed message that left me unsettled.

I have enjoyed the Once Upon a Con series, despite some of its downfalls. And I hope Ashley Poston will release a new one to continue the series.

i really liked the first two books in this series so the fact that this book is so exceptionally mediocre, bordering on full on bad, is just such a disappointment.

i wasn't expecting the amount of lgbt+ rep in this book which i guess was a nice surprise (all 3 major male characters are queer and one major character is non-binary) but then that was paired by the most stereotypical character archetypes that it probably cancelled out anything good. fyi, there is a latinx character in this and to show that they're latinx they're constantly cooking (tamales, enchiladas etc.) and the only spanish they use in the entire book is ‘dios mio' and ‘mijo'......yeah.

other than poor characterisation, the main characters in this book had ZERO romantic chemistry. i didn't feel it once in this. they meet and fall in love in one night without knowing who the other person is, not exchanging names or numbers, anything like that (totally believable) and then they meet through a convoluted ‘meet cute' and are forced to spend one month together reorganising a private library??? and of course they fall in love all over again within that month because why not? the problem isn't so much the timeline of the book, but that it takes about three interactions for them to fall in love and none of it feels real or believable. i just didn't get it.

other things that niggled included how obvious the batb characters were in this, the near constant references to things and how vance doesn't recognise how privileged he is at any point in this.

tl;dr: pop culture references + underdeveloped characters + basic beauty and the beast retelling = this book

The Once Upon a Con series is SO charming. I wish the first one weren't called Geekerella because I just think that title sounds so much worse than the book itself is, but anyway, I'm glad I eventually picked it up. I love that Ashley Poston just unapologetically knows what tropes she likes and is here to deliver them. The premise here I think is a bit weaker than the previous two books but the book is just too much fun to think too hard about the exact string of events leading to Rosie having to work off her debt to a mysterious homeowner for chasing a dog and knocking a valuable book into a pool.

Also, it's fun to read all of these and see the references to characters from other books, but they all really stand alone.