Lisa’s Comments (group member since Aug 16, 2014)

Lisa’s comments from the Once Upon a Time... group.

An elemental - a person that can control the elements or either fire, air, water, or earth.
In the book that I was thinking of she is a fire elemental. However, the book is Mercedes Lackey's "Fire Rose". It is a very loosely based retelling, but it was a good book.

Beastly is on my TBR list, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I had never heard of the Wendy Mass one, so will add that to my list.
I really enjoyed the Robin McKinley version. It's been a long time, but if I remember correctly, that one has Beauty as an elemental.

I have the same copy as you, Cheryl, but won't be starting it until tomorrow or the weekend. Hope you enjoy it!

Klye wrote :
And I've always thought that the tale itself is very well suited to interesting and good adaptations/retellings more-so than a lot of other fairy tales. But I might be a bit biased about that because I like the story so much.

I couldn't agree with this more if I had written it myself!

I found it interesting that the Mahlon F. Craft version (my top cover) has the reason for the prince being changed into a beast as being an impish fairy just playing a trick. However, that same fairy changed her sisters into statues until they could see that the ugliness of their envy and change their ways.

Good for you, Gem! Naturally, I have read that version (actually several times - LOL), which is why I chose to go with a few other illustrated ones to see the differences and enjoy the graphics. Fighting eyes is no fun - I personally have been struggling this past week with that problem due to sinuses and it is so frustrating.

I will be curious to see the variations of details in the versions you choose. As of now, for this month I have read these two versions.


In both of these editions she is called Beauty and is the youngest of three sisters.

I'm getting a bit of a late start this month. Sorry.
Anyway, Beauty and the Beast has always been one of my favorite fairy tales, mainly because that, unlike the majority of tales, the female character actually is a true heroine and not dependent on anyone else to save her. She doesn't have to go to the castle, but chooses to in order to save her father. When she gets there she chooses, as she has chosen in her other trials previously, to make the best of a bad situation.
Several years ago I read a book that was a compilation of many versions of the tale (at least 30, but I think there were 50). I wish I still had it. Each version has minor variations, but the integral tale is the same. A prince or rich noble has been cursed to be a beast for some reason (some versions tell the reason, others don't). A beautiful young lady, (sometimes the only child, other times the favored daughter), asks her father to bring her a rose when he goes on a journey (the reason for the journey varies as well). The father takes a rose from the beast's garden without permission and must pay the penalty of his own life or that of another. The daughter (usually called Beauty or Belle) willingly takes her father's place and over time falls in love with the beast and breaks his curse.

I'm so glad you liked it, Gem! It seems that there are seven in the series (Daughters of Eville). I need to go back and read the second one, which is a Cinderella retelling. I can't get them through my library, but they are on kindle. I will probably just listen to them on Hoopla, though, as this was an enjoyable listen.

I found the "daughter of the sea" twist quite intriguing.

Agreed! The choices were completely hers and she thought hard about them first.

I kind of never thought of Anderson's characters not having names before, but you are right. The majority don't. Right now I can only recall Kay and Gerda, and Thumbelina and Tom Thumb. Interesting!

I disliked the whole turning to sea foam aspect as well, and totally understood why she would want to earn a soul. It goes into the whole afterlife debate, and I really don't want to argue religion or such, but if there is nothing after this life, it seems kind of sad, and that seems to be what the little mermaid was thinking as well.

Cheryl, I definitely wouldn't consider it light. I guess by more fun than the original is that I found the original kind of boring and this is not boring at all.
It is certainly not more intense than the majority of fairy tales in any way. The blurb makes it sound like she is a murderer, but the guy's death was a complete accident. She was fighting him off of her sister, who he was trying to rape, but she had no intention of killing him.
Marisol (Mary) isn't a mermaid. The only real sacrifice she has to make to become the cabin boy is completely leaving her family and having no contact with them at all, as well as cutting off her long hair.
It is the sea witch and her daughters that are the mermaids. Mary has to make a bargain to save the crew of the ship. If I say much more there are major spoilers, so I will leave it at that.
There is adventure, humor, romance, good and evil, family devotion, honor, loyalty to friends, surprises and unexpected twists, and so much more.
I honestly think you would like it, but I could be wrong, since everyone has different tastes. How can you get it. I was actually surprised that the only way I could get this one right now was on audiobook through Hoopla, but the narrator was quite good.

I loved all the twists in this Little Mermaid retelling. So much more fun than the original, and much more in depth than the Disney version.

I didn't realize that this was the 3rd book of a series that I read the first of several years ago. The first one is Of Beast and Beauty and I enjoyed it very much. As I was starting this one, I was recognizing names and details. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as well, and will want to read or listen to the rest of the series eventually.

So it had been an extremely long time since I had read the original tale (like probably close to 50 years - LOL). I did remember a lot of it, especially her pain, but there was so much I didn't remember at all. I had totally forgotten about the twist at the end.

Unless that is the narrator's normal accent, there is absolutely no reason that they would have chosen a Russian accent. Although, they do describe the palace as being domed like many Russian architecture is.

I will be doing this one as an audio book, but it should be enjoyable.

I just finally got my copy from the library and will be reading it tonight or tomorrow morning. It was crazy how many copies of the Disney version were available, but very few of the original by Anderson. Both of those close to me (none from my own county) were checked out and would have been a three week or more wait, so I got it from a county in the south of the state.

Dickens is hard to "digest" at times. It seems to me that his tales are a mixed bag. I either really like them and find them easy to read, such as A Christmas Carol, or don't really care for them at all like The Magic Fishbone. Others, as you say are just quite long and wordy, so hard to get through. I adore the tale of Oliver Twist, but it is a heavy read. However, it is one of my favorite plays of all time.

Wow! I didn't even think of the similarities.

That story is quite funny. Who would imagine tobacco smoke being the source of life. LOL