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Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9780064407458
ISBN number: 0064407454
Label: HarperTeen
Manufacturer: HarperTeen
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 240
Printing Date: August 01, 2001
Publishing house: HarperTeen
Age index: Young Adult
Release Date: August 07, 2001
Sale Popularity Level: 86395
Studio: HarperTeen
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
With language that is both lyrical and distinctly her own, Francesca Lia Block turns nine fairy tales inside out.
Escaping the poisoned apple, Snow frees herself from possession to find the truth of love in an unexpected place.
A club girl from L.A., awakening from a long sleep to the memories of her past, finally finds release from its curse.
And Beauty learns that Beasts can understand more than men.
Within these singular, timeless landscapes, the brutal and the magical collide, and the heroine triumphs because of the strength she finds in a pen, a paintbrush, a lover, a friend, a mother, and finally, in herself.
Best Children's Books 2000 (PW)
Books for the Teen Age 2001 (NYPL)
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
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Rated by buyers 
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Each story is a short, clever, beautifully crafted, emotionally gripping, contemporary spin on a familiar fairy tale. Written in spare language, this is not mass market, yet it's not so high-brow that I ever had to strain to grasp a meaning. I read it in a couple of hours, but I will remember and ponder these tales for a very, very long time.
Rated by buyers -
this book was really great. often with the retelling of a popular story there is the potential to fail miserably, as so many people know and love the original. even taking the bare bones of a story and (like cinderella for example) and using it as a plot line for other stories wherein you can clearly see the reference can go horribly wrong because there are so many examples of this story being told correctly and well... that is is somewhat admirable for an author to take on these stories and succeed as did this author.
the book is a collection of short stories, the retold fairy tales being snow white, thumbelina, cinderella, sleeping beauty, little blue riding hood, rose blue and rose white, blue beard, beauty and the beast, and the snow queen.
the author has a very lyrical style of writing that leaves you with an almost evanescent interaction with the emotions she's throwing at you... kind of reminiscent of patricia mckillip, but not that intense. some of the fairy tales are modernized and some aren't, but all of them take a different look the fairy tale in question, staying close enough to the original that you can clearly relate it, but looking at it from different angles, making it almost a different story. the plot doesn't change, the perspectives do.
definitely a successful attempt.
Rated by buyers -
I would have to say after reading through the other reviews a lot were biased, however they have their own opinion
The book is a retelling of your normal fairy tales, in which its what you base it on, Francesca Lia Block does a wonderful job in telling her own versions of the stories in her own almost dream like poetic ways, now some may not find enjoyment in that but from the very first Block book I ever read i want to own them all and i had lost the book and i had to buy it again. Her books bring a modern twist that makes you believe that all girls are punk princesses and boys are handsome young men who kisses are like the break of a tide on sand. If you liked it or are interested in her other retellings try Psyche in a Dress which is also breath takingly amazing
Rated by buyers 
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From Snow White to Thumbelina to Sleeping Beauty, in The Rose and the Beast Block retells nine fairy tales, telling them in her unique voice that makes magic appear naturally in urban settings, modernizing the settings, characters, and often the underlying meanings of these classic tales. The stories vary in quality, but on the whole the idea is admirable but the execution is disappointing: too much time and effort is given to plot, too little to meaning, and the so the stories are empty. I appreciate the attempt, but I found the result disappointing, and I wish that Block had written fewer, longer, more complete stories. Therefore, only apathetically recommended.
Collections of short stories are, as I've said before in other reviews, difficult to summarize because each story is unique; this collection is somewhat different in that the stories are all on the same theme: retold fairy tales. Some of the new settings are more modern than others, ranging from the chimerical setting of Snow White's house in the desert to the concrete setting of Sleeping Beauty's L.A. party lifestyle, but all of them are retellings, largely modernized, renamed, and sometimes partially replotted. The other uniting factor is Block's consistent magical writing style, rich with physical, beautiful description and light on internalization and narration. The characters, changes in the plots, and messages are unique and vary from story to story.
These uniting factors make it easier to judge the collection as whole. What Block attempts is both artful and magical, but the length of these (quite short) short stories limits the depth of the stories and, with it, their impact. Block's writing style is well suited to retold fairy tales: as with her other texts, she naturally maintains the chimerical magical setting; she does so while modernizing the characters and the morals and as a result the still-magical aspects (the seven twin brothers, the forgotten memories, Tiny's thumbnail size) seem completely at natural, and the reader is never hung up by what would otherwise be impossible. The result are stories that are naturally artful and magical, both by nature of Block's own writing and the stories themselves. However, the pages are rich with white space and the stories are only about twenty-five pages each--the stories are short, and their bulk is dedicated to setting and exposition; only a page or two is reserved for the conclusion and, with it, the meaning. There isn't much time to dedicate to characterization, meaning, or depth to the stories, and the stories suffer for it. They feel brief, the characters limited; they rarely have an impact or encourage thought after they conclude.
I wanted to like this book, because I love fairy tales, especially retold fairy tales, and because I believed that Block's writing style would be optimal for this purpose. And while this book does have a lot of potential, I think that it would have been more successful with fewer stories and more time given to developing aspects outside of the plot--even better, perhaps, would have been a single novel-length retelling. As it is, the book is disappointing: a good idea with only limited substance. Some of the stories are more remarkable than others, offering more in the way of character and in meaning, but for the most part I only apathetically recommend this book. It isn't bad, but it isn't particularly good, and the fact that it does not live up to its potential makes it disappointing.
Rated by buyers -
The author of this book takes well-known fairy tales, such as Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast, and retells them from an updated point of view, from the woman's perspective. The results are interesting, although not nearly as light-hearted as the tales we all are familiar with. Many of the stories involve sex, abuse, and drugs, and although the women in the stories usually end up okay, they have to go through some difficult times before they get there.
I liked that the stories focused on the women, instead of on the men or the villains or on the women's parents. Each female character was unique and strong in her own way. I also liked the kind of free verse poetic writing in which these stories were written. It was sometimes a bit hard to follow, as there were few clear descriptions and lots of similes, but the writing really flowed well.
Some of these stories were very dark, especially the ones involving drugs and sexual abuse. They were a bit intense, especially for the teenage audience of this book.
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