by Cat Hellison
♦publisher: Henry Holt & Co
♦release date: February 3rd, 2015
♦hardcover, 208 pages
♦intended audience: Middle Grade
♦stand-alone
♦source: from publisher for honest review
Sarah has always been on
the move. Her mother hates the cold, so every few months her parents
pack their bags and drag her off after the sun. She’s grown up lonely
and longing for magic. She doesn’t know that it’s magic her parents are
running from.
When Sarah’s mother walks out on their family, all the strange old magic they have tried to hide from comes rising into their mundane world. Her father begins to change into something wild and beastly, but before his transformation is complete, he takes Sarah to her grandparents—people she has never met, didn’t even know were still alive.
Deep in the forest, in a crumbling ruin of a castle, Sarah begins to untangle the layers of curses affecting her family bloodlines, until she discovers that the curse has carried over to her, too. The day she falls in love for the first time, Sarah will transform into a beast . . . unless she can figure out a way to break the curse forever.
When Sarah’s mother walks out on their family, all the strange old magic they have tried to hide from comes rising into their mundane world. Her father begins to change into something wild and beastly, but before his transformation is complete, he takes Sarah to her grandparents—people she has never met, didn’t even know were still alive.
Deep in the forest, in a crumbling ruin of a castle, Sarah begins to untangle the layers of curses affecting her family bloodlines, until she discovers that the curse has carried over to her, too. The day she falls in love for the first time, Sarah will transform into a beast . . . unless she can figure out a way to break the curse forever.
Review: Cat Hellison so perfectly captures the classic fairy tale feel in Beastkeeper. I loved her writing style in When the Sea is Rising Red and while completely different, I love it here, too. It's lyrical while still feeling contemporary, you can hear that it's told by a young girl of modern times, albeit a girl that is thrust into a pretty extraordinary and lonely situation. She's such a strong, sincere character and I can't imagine being her age (or any age for that matter!) and discover that you'll turn into a beast and possibly lose yourself inside that beast the first time you fall in love!
The mystery and magic keeps the pages flying by, and I appreciated that evil is not plain evil, good is not always good, love is not straightforward or easy, and Sarah discovers that being human is not the only way to be herself. There is a stroke of humor to the writing as Sarah actually does become the beast and we feel her struggling to keep her thoughts more human that wild animal.
With it's intricate twists and the way it examines such intense things, like what it means to be yourself, the love of family, and the twisted ways of love and forgiveness, I can see Beastkeeper being one story that reaches out far beyond it's middle grade audience.
