This was such a sweet little story. I fell right into it and read straight through to the end. ( )

I liked the middle of this book---the middle, after everyone's been introduced and they can prance about going to the mall, practicing for the school play, attending parties, and mucking about with teenage drama. All that stuff was kinda interesting. Not fascinating, but engaging enough, especially if you pretend you're 13 and knee-deep in that kinda stuff anyway.

But the beginning? With its love at first sight that for some unknown reason doesn't compel its protagonists to say more than, "Hey," to each other? And its heavy-handed hints at the hero's unhappy homelife that never actually pan out? And its hero and heroine who somehow manage to come across as perfect despite their Tragic Backstories?

And the end? With its pat, perfunctory tidying of all loose ends? Including, but not limited to, its heroine inexplicably intuiting the hero is a Gallowglass, the obscure mercenary knight the hero secretly sees himself as?

...Sigh...

Add in a supposed Beauty and the Beast storyline that fails to materialize---no, it's not Beauty and the Beast just 'cuz he's disabled and she's beautiful/nice---and some really stilted, uncomfortable writing, and it's a bit surprising I enjoyed the middle as much as I did. Still, that's not enough to make this a good read. ( )

“Crazy Beautiful” begins with two new students – a troubled double amputee named Lucius, and a sunny young woman named Aurora, recently recovering from her mother’s death from cancer. Initially drawn to one another, Aurora is quickly adopted by the popular crowd, while Lucius finds himself befriending the young but disillusioned security guard at the school. The story becomes rushed and confused about two-thirds of the way through. Lucius confesses his secret to Aurora, her father is suspended from his school librarian job, and the high school popular crowd unravels. The development of the antagonist is passably written, though predictable.

Though teenage girls will be drawn to this story by its attractive black & white cover and premise based on “Beauty and the Beast,” the writing detracts from what could have been a much better story. ( )

This was odd and not at all what I was expecting between the cover and the description. The end is a little jumpy after a detailed plot line ( )

Lucius and Aurora are both new kids at school. Lucius blew off his hands in an explosion at home and stands out as "the kid with hooks;" Aurora's mother recently died, but she fits in with the cool kids right away. Despite their worlds apart and the behavior of Aurora's new friends, she's the first person in a long time to show Lucius kindness instead of fear - but she can't really be falling for him, can she?

This modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast has no fantastical elements but all the sweetness of the original tale. Lucius and Aurora are both very relatable characters, and switching between their first-person narration worked well in both showing multiple sides and creating tension. It's a short book and a simple but good story, one I would easily recommend to fans of realistic teen romance. ( )