Beast

Reviewed by: Brooke Faulkner - McArthur Public Library, Biddeford, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: March 8, 2017

Review

This story of first love between Dylan, a very smart and nearly seven foot tall, extremely hairy 15-year-old uncreatively nicknamed "Beast" by his classmates at his Catholic private school and pretty, talented, transgender Jamie, is a poignant and realistic novel that gives only the briefest of nods to the fairy tale that might be presumed by some readers to be its inspiration.

Dylan meets Jamie in a support group for self-harming teens to which he's referred by a doctor who treats him for a broken leg after he falls off a roof. Though it seems clear that Dylan was not actually trying to hurt himself, his bitter disparaging of his appearance alarms the doctor and his caring, if overbearing, mother insists that he try the group. In the very first session of the group, Jamie speaks clearly about being transgender but Dylan is characteristically so lost in his own self-pitying thoughts that he spaces out during it, setting up a premise where she believes he knows she is transitioning and is unfazed by it when in actuality he does not. The reveal happens fairly early on - and is further complicated by it involving Dylan's popular, opportunistic best friend J.P., who has used Dylan for years as a violent heavy to play the role of debt collector in his inethical money-making schemes - but a relationship has already progressed between Dylan and Jamie that has them both hooked.

Deeply painful, transphobic reactions transpire, and readers hearts will ache for resiliant, honest Jamie. Dylan, however, is not an easy character to like, and while the cruelty he's faced for much of his life about his size and the grief that he and his mother feel about his father's death from cancer many years before will garner sympathy, it is likely that even as he begins to transform and admit to himself that Jamie is still the same person, that some readers will hope Jamie stays clear of him. Yet, many others will be swept up by their often sweet interactions and obvious attraction and be moved by Dylan's real and complicated internal monologues about his feelings for Jamie as well as his struggle to change and better understand his relationships with both J.P. and his mother.

An honest and often heart-wrenching romance with multi-dimensional characters, this is a smart first YA novel from picture book illustrator and author Spangler.

Overall Book Score: very good