#BATBathon TBR and Recommendations

Happy Friday, fellow book nerds! I hope you're all excited for the start of the Beauty and the Beast Readathon tomorrow. To kick off the 'thon, I wanted to share some recommendations of my favorite BATB retellings, as well as my highly unrealistic TBR pile for the readathon. You can find all the readathon challenges and details over here on the announcement post.

My Recommendations

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. You've probably heard of this one unless you've been living under a rock for the past three years. And if you follow me on Twitter, it should come as no surprise that it's one of my recommendations. I'll be completely honest and admit that ACOTAR didn't totally hook me the first time around. It wasn't until I read A Court of Mist and Fury that I fell head over heels for this series, so if you're reading it for the first time and find your attention drifting, stick it out. I promise it's worth it. Also, you can definitely read both ACOTAR and ACOMAF for this challenge, because ACOMAF is sort of a Hades and Persephone retelling! As you can tell, I am completely unbiased and not at all trying to push you into reading my favorite book. :)

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge.  It's been five years since I last read this book (what?! how?!), so I'm a little foggy on all the details, but what I do remember is that I wholeheartedly loved it. You can read my review here. Cruel Beauty combines Greek mythology with the Beauty and the Beast fairytale in a wholly unique way, and it has a totally swoon-worthy bad boy villain/love interest.

Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay. Apparently I was on a BATB in 2014 because I read Of Beast and Beauty shortly after finishing Cruel Beauty (and reviewed it here). This is more of a sci-fi BATB retelling that takes place on another planet. I've forgotten a lot of the details of this one as well, but I remember getting pretty darn emotional at the end. Tears were shed.

The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon.  I'm not sure if The Bird and the Sword is officially categorized as a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but it does involve a girl who is taken to live with a cursed prince, so I'm going to count it. Plus, I love this book and I need more people to gush over it with me, so there. :)

Honorable Mentions:

• Hunted by Meagan Spooner
• Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier
• A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

My TBR

In no particular order:

• The Beast's Heart by Leife Shallcross
• East by Edith Pattou 
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• Entreat Me by Grace Draven 
• Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer 
• Beauty by Robin McKinley 
• Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley 
• Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge by Lisa Jensen 

What books do you all plan on reading? Are we reading any of the same ones? Let me know in the comments, and happy reading! 

Announcing the Beauty and the Beast Readathon!

 

Happy Saturday, everyone! I am so excited to announce that next month I will be hosting my second readathon: the Beauty and the Beast Readathon! #BATBathon will run from Saturday, March 9, through Sunday, March 17. The goal: to read as many Beauty and the Beast retellings as you can! Let's get into the details.

WHAT

The Beauty and the Beast Readathon is exactly what it sounds like—a readathon specifically for retellings of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. I'm a huge fan BatB stories, and many of my favorites books over the past several years have fallen into this category: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge, the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas, and Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay, to name a few. My TBR list of BatB retellings is continually growing, and I thought a readathon would be a fun way to tackle a small portion of that list and maybe discover even more books in the process!

So what can you read for the challenge? Basically anything related to Beauty and the Beast! Any format counts (physical, e-book, audiobook, manga, graphic novel, short story, etc.) and any genre and audience level count. If you want to read a bunch of BatB picture books, go for it! If you want to read strictly adult fiction, go for it! If you want to read a mix YA, adult, and picture books—you guessed it—go for it!

Also, when many of us think of Beauty and the Beast, we probably think of the Jean-Marie Leprince de Beaumont fairy tale (the version that Disney's Beauty and the Beast is based on). However, this readathon is open to all Beauty and Beast-esque stories from around the world, such as the Norwegian "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" or the Greek myths of Hades and Persephone and Cupid and Psyche.

HOW

There are two ways to participate in the readathon. You can freestyle it and read any BatB retellings you want, or if you want more of a challenge (or just a way to narrow your reading selections), you can follow along with these prompts.

GET INVOLVED

When posting about the readathon on Twitter or Instagram, be sure to use the hashtag #BATBathon. To make the event a little more interactive, you can also particpate in the bookstagram photo challenge using the prompts below. They're pretty open-ended, so feel free to get creative! 

Over the next week, I'll be asking participants via Twitter and Instagram to submit reading recommendations, and as we get closer to March 9, I'll post a Suggested Reading list with everyone's recommendations for those of you who aren't sure what you want to include in your TBR or need help finding retellings. In the meantime, you can check out my BatB retellings shelf on Goodreads, which includes some of my favorites as well as ones I want to read.

I'm also considering hosting a movie watchalong of the animated 1991 Disney movie, the 2017 live action Disney movie, or the 2014 live action French movie (which is gorgeous, by the way), but the date of this specific event is TBD. I'll post a Twitter poll the week leading up to the readathon to gauge people's interest and get a feel for what the best date and time would be.

That about wraps up the announcement post! I hope you'll join me for a week of fairy-tale goodness! I can't wait to see all of your reading recommendations. Let me know in the comments if you'll be participating, what your favorite BatB retelling is, and what you plan on reading. :)