Review Detail

Beauty Queen (Whatever After #7)

Middle Grade Fiction 175

Be Abby's Guest

November 05, 2016 (Updated: July 01, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

N/A

Writing Style

N/A

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Maryrose is blocking Abby and Jonah from using the mirror, and Jonah's memory of traveling through the magic glass has been removed. However, after Abby destroys a classmates painting out of jealousy and has nightmares about it, the mirror calls the siblings to it, and they once again travel into a fairy tale. This time it is Beauty and the Beast. The two are not scared of the Beast, since they are familiar with the tale, although their dog, Prince is not so sure! The Beast decides to hold Jonah captive since he stole a rose, but Abby knows that the Beast's curse can only be removed if someone falls in love with him. She offers to go to Town and find Beauty and bring her back. Beauty isn't frightened, but she's also not very interested in getting to know the Beast. She would prefer to keep up with her charity and volunteering work. When Abby tells her that she would be doing a good deed by marrying the Beast, Beauty reluctantly agrees. The spell is broken and the wedding is planned. Eventually, though, Abby realizes that the two don't love each other. Is it worth it to break the spell and make two people miserable?

Good Points

The Whatever After series turns classic fairy tales on their head by offering characters who don't always follow the (often Disney-esque) scripts. The Beast, for example, decides that it
s more fun to play with Jonah than to have to put up with a girlfriend. The evil fairy who bestowed the curse has a different agenda. Even Beauty has her own eccentricities, wanting to organize the Beast's books rather than talk to him. This leads to different sorts of endings as well-- the Beast eventually falls in love at first sight with the local cheesemonger!

The language used reflects this flippant attitude, and the juxtaposition between the classical story framework and the colloquial use of language often leads to laughable moments. When Abby is turned into a beast temporarily, Jonah muses whether she should be "Beastette" or "Beastella".

The fairy tale story is always framed with a school or family occurrence of Abby's that ties in with the story. In this case, she does something she knows she should not do in a moment of anger, and is later able to make peace with the person whose art she destroyed.

Fairy tale spin offs are always popular, and readers who have devoured Shurtliff's Rump, Jack and Red or Levine's Princess Tales, will be glad to join Abby and he brother on their adventures.