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Dec 16, 2009

Aerin rated it:

This is an achingly beautiful and stunningly-told fable that broke my heart.

The unicorn was gray and still. "There is magic on me," she said. "Why did you not tell me?"

"I thought you knew," the magician answered gently. "After all, didn't you wonder how it could be that they recognized you?" Then he smiled, which made him look a little older. "No, of course not. You never would wonder about that."

"Th More...

5 comments like (19 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

"It cannot be an ill fortune to have loved a unicorn," he said. "Surely it must be the dearest luck of all, though the hardest earned."

"As for her, she is a story with no ending, happy or sad. She can never belong to anything mortal enough to want her."

What a weenie am I! I actually got all misty eyed near the end of this book. Really a sweet story filled with colorfully drawn characters and writing that engages all six of your senses. More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 12, 2009

Tara rated it:

it's a real shame that as i was giving this book five stars i could hear in my head some of the many people whose opinions i don't ask for going "oh, that tara, she's so spacey and mock-able. ha!" if they saw it, and then i think, well.. let's be sweet anyway. so last night my dad and i were watching the jimmy carter documentary and were all "oh, he is so awesome". then the dvd player started acting up. i grabbed another disc and put it in to see where the problem lay, and th More...

5 comments like (34 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Mona rated it:

This book may fool you. It's not a once-upon-a-time tale, nor is it just for children. When I first picked up this book, all I knew about it was that a trusted friend - whose book recommendations have never led me astray - loved it. I was under the impression that it was for children, and even though I am a self-described kid at heart and stalwart defender of children's literature, I thought it would be a light read, devoid of any complexities. Well, I was wrong.

The story begins in t More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jul 31, 2011

teacup_carousel rated it:

This book has haunted me ever since I first finished it years, and years ago. I'll be driving down the freeway and the slant of sunlight off of a trucks rear window will suddenly remind me of a line in one of these chapters and a fever will grab hold of me all of a sudden and it won't be quelled until I get home and reread that passage, which turns into rereading that chapter which turns into rereading this book. I'm not safe anywhere, I was sick to death recently and the first thing I reached f More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2011

Fox rated it:

The Last Unicorn is quite possibly the most beautiful book ever written. The story it tells is of a quest undertaken by the last unicorn, Molly Grue, and Schmendrik the Magician to save the unicorns from the Red Bull of King Haggard. What appears at first glance to be a traditional fantasy tale winds up being far more. The Magician is the last of his own kind, however, he is also completely incompetent in his art and wishes nothing more than to find his magic so that he may be mortal and die. More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 30, 2009

Ambertronic rated it:

I seriously wonder if Peter S. Beagle has Synesthesia. His choice of adjectives is beautiful and downright tasty. Sounds have color and texture, it's as if he was able to show people what it would be like to walk into a Van Gogh painting and live inside it.

His plot is not as it seems, at first appearing cliche (you may find yourself thinking "This is like the start of hundreds of fairy tales I've read as a kid") but you will be delightfully proven wrong. His characters a More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2011

Mercedes rated it:

One of the most beautiful stories I have ever read in my life. I read it as a child and it has stayed with me ever since.

There's a certain melancholy sweetness about it that touches your soul, its lyrical prose just floats off the page like the softest down, it's like having a dream about a poem you once heard many years ago.

I'm such a fan of this book that I even have a signed deluxe copy (including the coda, Two Hearts) by the man himself!

Soppy, I know, but it's one of the rare few books that More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2011

Diane rated it:

I picked up this book after reading the Nebula award-winning novelette "Two Hearts," which is really a sequel to The Last Unicorn. Had I not read "Two Hearts," I would have passed on this book, based on the title alone. Unicorns - along with rainbows and ponies - are for little girls. Right? If not for "Two Hearts," I would have never purchased The Last Unicorn, and I would have missed out on one of the most enchanting and beautifully written books I have ever read. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 26, 2009

Raja99 rated it:

Why I read this book: It's probably been on my to-read pile for decades. Our family often spends Christmastime in Florida for a week, and I plan to get a lot of reading done. I'd taken this at least once before, but hadn't gotten around to it. This time, I got around to it ;-).

An amazing book. I'd heard that this was one of the classics of fantasy, and was a little afraid of getting burned (as I was by Tea with the Black Dragon, though my friends at the SFDG helped me appreciate that More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 13, 2008

Amanda rated it:

"The Last Unicorn" was one of my favorite childhood movies. My sister and I watched it so many times that to this day, we can still quote over half the movie if not all of it.

The story is a unicorn who lives with no cares, existing in her own vain world with no fear of death and no regrets. When she happens to hear a couple of hunters speak of there being no more unicorns left in the world, she leaves the safety of her wood to find out where they've all gone.

A More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 17, 2009

Richard rated it:

A short, sweet and bittersweet fantasy about unicorns and wizards, enchantments, monsters and heroes.

Beagle has gentle fun with this fairy-tale quest, winking and teasing his readers with soft ironies intermixed with a lullaby of a story.

It doesn't take long to read this classic, and I can strongly recommend it to anyone susceptible to an innocent archetypal myth.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2011

Jan rated it:

Stones will probably be thrown at my head, but I only liked this. So many people seem to love this, that I feel a bit weird about that.

There's lovely writing in this, some genius touches of meta-fiction and genre savvyness, a truly non-human unicorn, and and abundance of lovely metaphors.

The writing was truly delicious, but I've always been more a a lover of a good and gripping story than of purely the magic of the written word.

And neither the characters nor More...

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 17, 2007

Jeffrey rated it:

This is one of my favorite books from childhood. I will note that the animated movie is actually pretty goood as a surreal interpretation of this book, it does a good job of holding onto the strangeness of the story and the classic fantasy elements.

Pearl S. Beagle takes the cliches of classic fantasy and twists them to create a unique world that is still very familiar. Underlying the entire story is a powerful sense of longing and nostalgia. It is sad (in a good way) and fantastic. T More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 29, 2009

Corinne rated it:

I am ashamed that I haven't read this before. I was a great devotee of the movie when I was young and it wasn't until I was a teen that I even realized there WAS a book. But even then, I remember checking it out once and trying it, but just preferring the movie. Silly girl. The book is just as good and definitely more profound. Or, maybe, I have just lived enough now to see that it IS profound.

The last unicorn doesn't know she is the last until she hears a hunter speak the words. Her More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2012

Kim (magicsandwiches) rated it:

I was introduced to this story by my sophomore english teacher. It was her last year before moving on to a college position and she wanted to go out with a bang by studying her favorite book. At the time, I enjoyed it as an exciting fantasy story with loads of humor, but it wasn't until my many rereadings as an adult that I really came to appreciate all the wonderful elements in it.

It tells the story of a unicorn who lives contentedly in a lush, deep wood without a thought for the outs More...

0 comments like

Jan 09, 2012

Paul rated it:

by Peter S. Beagle, published in 1968.

The Last Unicorn is truly a fantastic novel. And not only is it fantastic because it is a fantasy, but rather it has so much to offer and so many riddles to unravel along the way.

On the surface it is the journey of one unicorn to find the rest of her race which appears to be missing or totally gone. She wants to find out if she truly is the last unicorn in the world. She meets an eternally young wizard named Schmendrick, a scullery maid n More...

0 comments like

Jan 04, 2012

James rated it:

"The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle had been on my to-read list for years before I finally stumbled upon a used copy and decided that it was about time I read that book about the unicorn. The novel focuses on the quest of what is, quite probably, the last living unicorn in a world similar to, but not quite the same as our world. On her epic journey to find out what happened to her kind, she is joined the bumbling magician Schmendrick and the blunt and loyal Molly Grue. As is typical More...

0 comments like

Jan 03, 2012

Stephanie rated it:

Uploading a review of an Oldie...and a Goodie.

This and Michael Ende's "Neverending Story" are what made me love fantasy with a devotion only surpassed by my love for...Jesus. Yeah, pretty much anything else takes second place. In fact, I probably wouldn't love Jesus if books like this hadn't awakened my sense of longing for greater meaning. Figure that one out.

After reading this book several times as a teenager, I recently dusted it off and gave it another lookover, More...

0 comments like

Dec 13, 2011

Shazza rated it:

The Last Unicorn has been one of my favorite novels since I was a child, and I was surprised to find a collected graphic novel based on the story. Peter S. Beagle's novel is adapted by Peter Gillis, with art by Renae de Liz. While it is a lovely retelling, and the art is absolutely gorgeous, it only serves to me as an introduction to the actual novel. I would recommend it for children to read, and admire the art, and then later get them the novel.

That doesn't mean it doesn't stand o More...

0 comments like

Dec 03, 2011

Lisa.scott rated it:

Another book on my books-people-have-given-me-that-it-shames-me-to-admit-I-haven't-yet-read.
I have a love/hate relationship with fantasy...few authors do it well even with extensive description of castle tapestries and ladies' gowns, etc., so to have a truly beautiful story told with very real characters and without the distraction of visual details that anyone with a decent imagination could fill in, I found "The Last Unicorn" to be a breath of fresh air. Beagle even has his ow More...

0 comments like

Nov 30, 2011

Lori rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 21, 2011

Optimism rated it:

Absolutely loved it. A modern fairy tale (or myth, if you prefer), it seems to sit between The Hobbit and The Phantom Tollbooth. Very tragic at times, comedic at others, and suitably epic throughout. It's hard to do an epic quest without retreading on other works, but a unicorn as the main character... worked somehow. It was a bit hard to follow at times, but that's mainly because I was flying through it so quickly. That said, I may actually start it over again now that I know what happens so I More...

0 comments like

Sep 20, 2011

SL rated it:

"The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea..."

I absolutely LOVE the Last unicorn and it will always remain as one of my favorite books/novellas of all time. There is something absolutely magical with Peter S Beagle' More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 13, 2011

Kyle rated it:

While I was searching for some good unicorn names, I came across a website playing a song called "The Last Unicorn" in the background. When I could finally see through the tears brought on by that beautiful song, I discovered that it was actually a cover song. As it turned out, the original was the title song of a cartoon movie. I was heartbroken to find that the movie was not a "watch instantly" on Netflix, but the movie summary revealed something incredible--it was based More...

1 comment like

May 26, 2011

Erin rated it:

Having seen the The Last Unicorn cartoon many times as a child, I was a bit hesitant yet intrigued with this book. As a seven-year-old, many of the deeper subtexts of the plot were lost to me. My kid brain saw a creepy old dude, a gorgeous, whiny unicorn, and a ridiculously terrifying Red Bull. (That bull chased me through many a nightmare through the years, most often around the time book reports and research papers were due.) Never mind the whole 'watery equine' thing. Years and years of livin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 26, 2011

Ninja Sock Puppet rated it:

My wife is one of those lucky people who looks younger than she is. In high school this can be a problem because everyone thinks you're in grade school and won't sell you smokes, but when you hit thirty or so the joke's on them and who's laughing now, Mrs. Crows Feet and Mr. Male Pattern Baldness? It's that Scandihoovian fountain of eternal youth, passed down by her father who at sixty looks at least ten or fifteen years younger. From an early age she was mature well beyond her appearance.
More...

8 comments like (24 people liked it)

Mar 23, 2011

Mariel rated it:

Michel Gondry has a theory that when we sleep our bodies, minds, souls, heart (whatever else there might be) are opened up and when we awake we want to be close (and also explaining why people wake up horny). Like a kind of rebirth or cleansing of the day to day crap. (He puts it better than I do because he's Michel Gondry and I'm Mariel.) I dislike to be touched. I don't wake up craving physical connections like that. I'd rather wrap myself up in a cocoon. Preferably a bubble, that way I could More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2011

Glee rated it:

I wanted to really love this book, but I didn’t - quite. I did really like it, but I got bogged down at times, often for the good reason that the writing was so amazing that I had to slow down and let it roll around in my brain for a while. I read it many years ago and had appreciated it as a sad, sweet fairy tale. It is that, but the writing is remarkable. Lyrical, funny, tender, and often heart-breaking. Some samples:

“…the tiny, dry sound of a spider weeping…”

“…but More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 04, 2011

-k The Lady Critic rated it:

This was one of my absolute favourite animated movies from when I was really little. In fact, I’m surprised that I didn’t wear out of VHS copy I watched it so much – note to self; dig out said VHS and re-live childhood for a few hours.

I don’t know if it was because it was all about unicorns – my room had unicorn wallpaper and a rainbow mural – or because I thought that she was so pretty when she became human, but my eyes never strayed from the story and the red bull scared me.
More...

1 comment like

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