Book Review: Beheld by Alex Flinn

Posted February 9, 2017 by Melissa in Uncategorized / 3 Comments

Title: Beheld
Series: Kendra Chronicles #4

Author: Alex Flinn

Genre: YA Fantasy/Retelling
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published:  January 10th, 2017
Page Count: 368 pages
Format: eARC
Source: From publisher via Edelweiss

Summary:
#1 New York Times bestselling YA author Alex Flinn is back with magical twists on four fairy-tale favorites, each featuring a little help from Kendra, the witch from Beastly, as she searches through cities and centuries for her lost love.

Being a powerful witch, Kendra has survived it all. Since she first beheld James over three hundred years ago, Kendra has tangled with witch hunters and wolves, helped a miller’s daughter spin straw into gold, cowered in London as German bombs fell, and lived through who knows how many shipwrecks. But her powers have limits, and immortality can be lonely. Kendra isn’t ready to stop searching for the warlock she had met centuries ago.

With the help of her magic mirror, Kendra will travel the world to reconnect with her lost love—and, of course, she can’t help but play a hand in a few more stories along the way.

Featuring retellings of favorite fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and The Ugly Duckling, Alex Flinn’s latest young adult novel, Beheld, is fresh fairy-tale fun from beginning to end.

*The Reader’s Review*
My rating: 4/5 stars

.This review can also be found on YA Books Central.
Fans of Beastly, rejoice! In this new installment of the Kendra Chronicles, we get to follow Kendra–the powerful, immortal witch who cursed a popular,  arrogant High School boy and turned him into a beast–in her journey following love and helping those to find their own.
What I liked:
It was a pleasant surprise to find out that this book retells a few of my favorite childhood fairy tales (having missed reading about it before picking up this book) with meddling from Kendra. Beheld starts off with Little Red Riding Hood, but then moves on to Rumpelstiltskin, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and The Ugly Duckling. Each story features a different point of view from each starring role of the fairy tales and they take place during different time periods of Kendra’s long life up until our present day. 
My favorite retelling turned out to be Rumpelstiltskin‘s, for the main character by the name of Cornelia is an avid reader and much of the story revolves around her appreciation of the written word and how this influences her love life. I particularly enjoyed the spin to this fairy tale’s ending– incredibly sweet and perfect for the characters. It certainly left me wanting more! However, the rest of the retellings are equally enjoyable and extremely hard not to fall in love with.
Having read Beastly (the first book in the Kendra Chronicles) such a long time ago had made me forget how quickly the author, Alex Flinn, manages to suck readers into her stories. Her writing is fantastic and imaginative, smooth and easy to follow with no chance of ever getting bored. And the good part is that most of her works can be read as standalones, including Beheld!
What didn’t do it for me:
While I loved falling in love with the fairy tales characters and their relationships, I wish to have done the same with Kendra’s and Jame’s relationship. Somehow their romance felt a bit bland in comparison with the other fairy tales and that’s not what I was hoping for. It needed more.
Final Verdict:
Beheld by Alex Flinn is the book to go if you are a fan of retellings and stories within a story. From Little Red Riding Hood to The Ugly Duckling, every reader is bound to fall in love with these fairy tales (and Kendra’s antics) all over again!

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3 responses to “Book Review: Beheld by Alex Flinn”

  1. Olivia-Savannah

    Maybe the romance isn't working out as much as you would want it to, but the fairytale aspect sounds golden! I'm someone who falls for fairytale retellings quicker than anyone can say happily ever after. I know I'm going to end up reading this one sometime in the future now 😀

  2. Bryce Davis

    Just got an ARC of this, and I can't wait to read it now! I've only read Beastly though; do you have to read books 2 & 3 to know what's going on in this book? Or should I just read them?