“The Beast Within” from the Villains Series – A Disney Nerds Book Club Review

About the Book

As you might remember from my last book review, the Disney Villains series by Serena Valentino is a collection of seven books, each focused on a different Disney evil doer and their specific backstory. In the first book we learned about Snow White’s Evil Queen and her motivations for trying to kill her beloved step-daughter. “The Beast Within: A Tale of Beauty’s Prince,” the second installment in the series, centers around the Prince/Beast from the aptly named “Beauty and the Beast.”

The Fairytale

If you’ve seen the movie or heard the story before, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “But the Beast isn’t a villain…” While this is technically true, he’s not exactly a hero either. He definitely makes some questionable decisions (particularly at the beginning of the story) that require further examination and explanation. 

In case you’re not familiar with the tale, Beauty and the Beast is the story of a cursed Prince. Long before the opening scene, he receives a visit from an enchantress. Struck by his “ugly” heart and lack of compassion, the enchantress curses the Prince, his castle, and all his servants. His servants transform into inanimate objects while the Prince becomes a hideous beast. The only way to break the curse is for the Beast to both give and receive true love before the last petal falls (Oh! She also gave him a magic flower). 

The Beauty comes into the story when a young girl, attempting to save her father from the Beast’s wrath, volunteers to become his forever prisoner. The Beast is, at best, annoyed by the girl until he gets to know her and, of course, falls deeply in love. Music swells, montages ensue, and finally Belle, the Beauty, proclaims her love and kisses him just as the last petal falls.

“The Beast Within” 

To explain the enchantress’ motivations for this wretched curse, Valentino starts off the book with an interesting twist. The nameless yet powerful woman from the movie was actually an important romantic interest for our Prince. In fact, her name is Circe, and they were engaged. Of course, the Prince did not know about her magical powers. He only knew of her beauty and countenance. These superficial qualities were enough to convince the young man that they should marry and live happily ever after. 

Of course, since he didn’t bother to learn about his fiancé’s family or past, he didn’t know about her powers, her Twisted Sisters (Yes, THOSE sisters from the first book), or, just as importantly, the necessary facade the enchantress has created to remain anonymous within the town. To everyone else, Circe appears to be the daughter of a lowly pig farmer. When she is around the Prince, however, Circe wears her finest clothes and carries herself like royalty. 

The Prince’s best friend, Gaston (the very same Gaston we all know and love), feels obligated to inform the Prince of this before the marriage can be finalized. He wants his friend to avoid the shame of taking a pig farmer as a wife. While the Prince does not at first believe Gaston, he eventually travels to his beloved’s home to verify this information for himself. 

This is our first glimpse of the Prince’s truly hideous heart. When he sees Circe working with animals, he is completely disgusted. He treats it as a personal affront that she, his woman, would allow herself to be seen in the dirt, mud, and mire. In this moment, we see his true intentions. He wanted a beautiful, demure woman to increase his optics within the kingdom – but he didn’t really care about her wants, needs, or passions at all. 

After breaking off the engagement, the Prince returns to the castle. Circe, in an honest attempt to win back his affections, arrives that evening to explain herself. After treating her with obvious distain and cruelty, Circe reveals her true identity as one of the Twisted Sisters. After explaining that she is, in fact, royalty the Prince attempts to apologize and make amends. 

It’s too little too late, though. Circe and her sisters proceed to curse the Prince, his castle, and his servants with the spell that we all know so well. His servants will turn into inanimate objects and he will become a hideous beast. 

The Curse

As a kid, I always pictured these changes happening instantaneously. The servants changed to various objects, and the Prince transformed into the famous Beast. However, Valentino describes the evolution much differently. No changes are immediately visible. As events within the book progress, the Prince and servants do start to see small hints at the curse, but it’s still very minimal. The changes are so slight, it’s easy to pass them off as a figment of the Prince’s imagination. 

Of course, eventually the changes do become not only noticeable, but catastrophic. One by one servants “disappear” into the objects we know. Just as slowly, the Prince is devolving, not only in appearance but in character. He becomes more sullen, more angry, and more cruel by the day. 

We watch the Beast (as he’s no longer a Prince) proceed to push away all who care about him: new romances, his servants, and even his best friend (and let’s not forget that his best friend is the one and only Gaston). 

Meeting Belle

Eventually, we come to the fateful meeting between Belle’s father and the Beast resulting in Belle’s imprisonment in the castle. Much of Belle’s and Beast’s early relationship is seen from the Beast’s perspective. Meaning that we’re not going to see rousing musical numbers and choreographed dish ware. Instead, we’re watching the Beast brood about his appearance and scoff at Belle’s intelligence. 

That is until we get to the night of the wolf attack. We see Beast’s reaction at finding Belle in the West Wing. We watch Belle escape into the night and Beast chase her into the woods. 

What we weren’t privy to in the animated movie is the Beast’s inner monologue. We didn’t see that the Beast was originally chasing Belle out of anger and spite. He wanted revenge. He wanted blood, and he was going to get it from her. 

Of course, once the wolves came into view his developing animal instincts took over. Instead of focusing on the small girl, his attention immediately shifted to the creatures. As you probably know, the Beast fought off the hungry wolves and saved the young girl’s life. This event set into motion their relationship, love story, and ultimate lifting of the curse. 

Happily Ever After 

The last pieces of the story have a very different feel that then the preceding events. Up until this point, things have unfolded somewhat slowly. After the wolf attack, however, the rest of the tale is summed up in about 30 pages (in the Kindle version) or about 15% of the book. Consequently, the final scenes are told quickly and feel a bit rushed. 

After the wolf attack, our whole perspective on the action changes. We are now solely with the Twisted Sisters, who have become frustrated by Beast and Belle’s progression to true love and are trying to foil the Beast’s chance at happiness and freedom. To do this, the Sisters are viewing the final scenes and battle through an enchanted mirror. Watching the climax of the story by watching the Sisters’ reactions results in a very distant feeling by the end of the book. 

My Take

As a big fan of the first Villains story, I was honestly a little disappointed by this installment of the series. While I definitely got a better view of the Beast’s history, it failed to adequately explain just how the Beast became so self-centered and awful. A pampered upbringing is not an adequate explanation for cruelty and extreme shallowness.

By the same token, there’s little to no explanation of his feelings for Belle and what exactly caused that transformation. Part of this has to do with the perspective of the story. For much of his deepening relationship with Belle, we’re watching from the sidelines – stuck with the Twisted Sisters on the other side of a mirror. I would have enjoyed a closer perspective and an insider’s view on his realization of true love. 

Additionally, Valentino sets up a fascinating dynamic between Gaston and the Prince. I was excited to learn there was friendship and history between these two characters and fascinated to see how this relationship would influence decisions made later in the book. 

Unfortunately, she completely sidesteps this opportunity. By the final confrontation at the castle, the Sisters have enchanted the Beast and Gaston to lose all memory of each other. There’s no recognition, no guilt, and no underlying history to complicate those final events. There isn’t even any jealously between the two friends about the woman they’ve both come to love. I found this incredibly disappointing. 

While I was ultimately dissatisfied by “The Beast Within,” I’m excited to read the rest of the Valentino’s Villains series. I still enjoyed the deep dive into the Beast’s history and the additional exposition on this classic Disney tale!