Review: Beauregard And The Beast

Falls flat on both the romance and fairytale retelling.

Let me start by saying I wanted to like this book. A gay spin on Beauty and The Beast? Sign me up. Grumpy/sunshine, introvert/extrovert, nerd/jock? Triple check. However, this didn’t do it for me.

I will say from a technical standpoint Evie Drae is a competent writer as this book had few if any typos, grammatical errors, and was formatted well.

That said, this book failed to deliver on both the romance and fairytale aspect. Bo and Adam had no chemistry whatsoever and instantly wanted to hook up with each other. And aside from being gave and supposedly liking books, they had nothing in common.

I say supposedly because I don’t recall Adam ever picking up a book besides when he and Bo are studying to get their GED.

This combined with their lack of chemistry had me scratching my head as to why they’d be declaring their undying love for each other after only a few months of knowing the other, let alone why they’d be together at all. It felt to me like their whole relationship was surface level and based solely on looks/wanting to hook up.

As for the Beauty and The Beast aspect, it was nonexistent. You could have changed the names and it would have no effect on the story. There was no curse, no magic, no whimsy at all.

Additionally, the whole third act could have been resolved in a matter of paragraphs had they just talked and been honest with each other about what they wanted and were thinking/feeling.

As for the sex scenes, they lacked emotion and sensuality and towards the end I skipped them as they added nothing to the story.

This leads me to my next issue. Halfway through the second act, the story drags and by the last 60 or so pages I was tempted to DNF as nothing was happening. And by the end I was just glad to be done with this story.

 This book just didn’t spark joy for me. Check it out and maybe you’ll have a different experience.  

I give Beauregard and The Beast 2.0 out of 5 stars.