Customers say
Customers find the book’s fantasy realistic and interesting. They appreciate the blending of fairy tales with sci-fi, and the themes addressed in the novel. The writing quality is described as beautiful and poetic, and the author is considered serious. Readers describe the message as good, an allegory for mankind, and it leaves them with a sense of hope.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
With the critically acclaimed novels The Gate To Women’s Country, Raising The Stones, and the Hugo-nominated Grass, Sheri Tepper has established herself as one of the major science fiction writers of out Time. In Beauty, she broadens her territory even further, with a novel that evokes all the richness of fairy tale and fable. Drawing on the wellspring of tales such as “Sleeping Beauty,” Beauty is a moving novel of love and loss, hope and despair, magic and nature. Set against a backdrop both enchanted and frightening, the story begins with a wicked aunt’s curse that will afflict a young woman named Beauty on her sixteenth birthday. Though Beauty is able to sidestep tragedy, she soon finds herself embarked on an adventure of vast consequences. For it becomes clear that the enchanted places of this fantastic world–a place not unlike our own–are in danger and must be saved before it is too late.
ASIN : B00317G7JM
Publisher : Spectra; Reprint edition (December 18, 2009)
Publication date : December 18, 2009
Language : English
File size : 3.6 MB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 422 pages
Page numbers source ISBN : 0385419406
by Kindle Customer
great book!
I read this in paperback years ago – now replacing paper books with ebooks as I can.
by Marcos Ibarguen
Best cross of SF and Fantasy of all time.
This is my fourth or fifth reading, and this one is well worth reading every few years, if only to recall what beauty really means, and how horribly fragile it really is. You can read it as a (fairly fractured) fairy tale, an allegory, a memoir, an elegy for mankind… you can read it as fantasy, science fiction, or poetry, if you like. It doesn’t matter. This book succeeds across all genres, presenting a deeply moving portrait of beauty undone by evil. Tepper shows little mercy to her long-suffering protagonist prior to a ray of hope in the end, but along the way she explains it all, from the nature of angels and fairies to the sordid, “true” stories of Cinderella, Snow White, and others, seasoning the tales with biting satire, off-beat humor and a dash of pathos. A true masterpiece… and it’s not even her best book! READ IT!
by Coral Anne Dawn
Overall quite good but marred by Tepper’s biases.
Beauty is Tepper’s cri de coeur to what she sees as the decline of beauty in the world. For the most part written in the first person it is set out primarily as a diary recounting the adventures of one Beauty, daughter of the Duke of Westfaire, as she travels in time and space and lives through several very familiar fairy tales.I like most of the book, I like the writing and I like the basic idea: we are losing beauty and magic in this world. What I don’t like — and seemingly other reviewers agree — are Tepper’s suspects for the causes of the loss of beauty. Notably, in one particularly virulent paragraph in the last 2/3rds of the book Tepper blames the Catholic Church for its opposition to abortion and birth control and men generally. I question how one could possibly argue that aborting a child is a beautiful act. Tepper tends to hold religon in some contempt and fails to touch upon all the beautiful things that religon has brought to this world: Michaelangelo’s Pieta, the Taj Mahal, Notre Dame. So I find that at these points Tepper is being hypocritical — she is complaining about the loss of beauty but she herself holds beliefs that are as responsible for the loss of beauty as anyone: rejection of faith, acceptance of the culture of death (abortion and euthanasia), acceptance of vicitimization (modern feminisim and race politics).That being said, I can still recommend the book — in a case of trust the art not the artist. The message is more important than the messenger — and when she stays on message the book is tremendous.
by Amazon Customer
Some of her passages read like poetry. In fact
What a trip this was! Tepper manages to put her special touch on ancient tales, many which have been sanitized by the likes of Disney, Hollywood, et. al. All while constructing a time-hopping fantasy that keeps the reader mentally hopping to keep up. This is one of my few excursions into fantasy that could be classified as totally satisfying. In her usual fashion, Tepper injects strong commentary, penetrating views of social mores, and hard thought about the status of humans as they try to exist in this crazy world. And she still manages to send me to the dictionary now and then to either look up a new word, or to check on how she’s chosen to use an old one. Some of her passages read like poetry. In fact, some of them are good enough to stand alone and simply be read to a friend (my wife) for enjoyment.
by L. Pope
Beauty – trust Sherri.
I have always been a huge Sherri Tepper fan. Every writer has the luxury of creating a specific reality that somehow emerges from their own consciousness onto the page. Beauty is a rough ride down through Sherri’s grief for what is happening to our planet and our loss of connection to the wonder and magic of our inner lives.She pulls no punches, takes no prisoners, tells it like it is and I am grateful for her loyalty to her readers for trusting them to follow her in her process. There is light at the end of this particular tunnel and I was relieved to find it. This is a challenging book but it is also an honest one. Her use of fairy tale analogue is particularly apt as all fairy tales emerge from our “shadow” past to explain the magical complexity of our collective unconscious.I would not pick this as a first read for Sherri. Read Grass, The Gate to Womens Country, Sideshow, The Family Tree. Get to know her characters and her view of the universe so that when you read Beauty you can trust her as a writer and embrace both the shadow and the eventual light. Sherri is a serious writer. Every book has left me with serious things to think about and renewed loyalty to one of the best writers of any kind of fiction writing today.
by Spikesingetail
No gate to women’s country
I originally bought this book because I loved the aforementioned novel. I couldn’t describe beauty has a “bad book” but I must say it’s only for a certain type of person who likes a certain type of genre. For me, time travel and other nonsenses bore me but this is a fantasy novel so for those who love fantasy may enjoy it. The only thing to really complain about was that it took me over half the book to really get into it. The character’s in the book are pretty well developed except her love interest, he was a bit lame. At the end of the book I did not regret reading it and thought it to be extremely creative with a very good message.
by Christel Lewis
One of the best books ever
Years and years ago i was given this book by my mother who told me, “It’s from your sister in law and I borrowed it from her. i’m giving it to you because I liked it so much.” I have gone through at least 5 copies of this book, I loan them out and never get them back because they get passed along. And that’s got to be the highest honor a book can get.
by Franz
Mass market paperback listed as Paperback
This was listed just as Paperback but in reality was a Mass Market Paperback edition which was very disappointing when I got it today. My eyes don’t like the smaller type and form factor of mass market paperbacks so I only Very rarely buy those anymore (only if it’s the only edition available for a book I really really want, usually an out of print book). Bad Form Amazon!
by Bradley Gould
Sheri S. Tepper meditates in this wonderful story on beauty, horror, magic, wonder, and the state of the world. Using fairytales that are as old as time, she weaves a beautiful story from the past into the future. Wonderful, readable, engaging book.
by Julie Hiron
Brilliant, what an amazing twist to the fairy stories from my childhood. Loved it.
by Thomas Macher
After reading it the first time it became one of my favourite sf/fantasy/horror novels (it really is all of them and more). One of the most original works in this sector. And it is funny too (sometimes).
by Jennie Finch
I must confess to being a long-standing fan of Tepper’s work having first encountered her wonderful imagination in a second-hand copy of “The True Game”. Much of her work is set in an alternative reality, frequently in the near future and she has a number of concerns that colour her work – environment, organised religion and the rights of women being the most obvious.This is a perfect introduction to Tepper’s work as it brings together characters from familiar fairy stories (Sleeping Beauty, the heroine, Snow White and the Frog Prince anongst others) in a wonderful, funny and imaginative journey back and forth through time. Like all good fairy stories it has a message which is both striking and thought provoking.This is also a hugely enjoyable read with elements of fantasy, horror and suspence as well as a wicked sense of humour. Try it – you’ll be back for more.
by Mrs Reader
I read it for the first time some 6 years ago but it stuck in my memory as something very strange and magical. It is quite heavy on ‘save the earth’ theme which is ok I guess. I didn’t mind it personally. I have seen some reviews where people said they gave up after first few pages because there’s a lot going on and they couldn’t follow. If you are tempted to quit soon after starting please do not. Carry on and you will never forget this book.