Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in appearance, she can perhaps make up for in courage. When her father comes home with a tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must travel to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father insists that he will not let her go, but she responds, "Cannot a Beast be tamed?". Robin McKinley's telling of the classic fairy tale illuminates the unusual love story of a most unlikely couple -- Beauty and the Beast
