Alice will charm readers with her quirks, especially her devotion to Chris Hemsworth of Marvel’s Avengers films. Dunn’s ( Star-Crossed, 2018, etc.) latest YA adventure offers increasingly tantalizing twists that gleam in succession like nested matryoshka dolls. Following the Voice’s directions can save everyone-except the person Alice is ordered to kill. A virus will be created by a person Alice knows that will wipe out two-thirds of the world population. Strangely, the Voice calls her Malice and says not to fall for him because “it’ll only make what you have to do later harder.” Eventually, Alice learns that the Voice belongs to someone from 10 years in the future who needs help saving humanity. Bandit is a beautiful Thai boy who’s talented and arrogant. The agony intensifies until a Voice enters Alice’s mind, asking her, “Do you want this pain to stop?” The Voice then instructs her to go up to Bandit Sakda, a classmate playing basketball, and say that she loves him. Alice is about to catch up with Lalana Bunyasarn, her best friend, when a sudden “streak of electricity zaps through” her head. Alice has been Archie’s one true friend since their mother left six years ago. With her is Archie, her brother, a senior and science prodigy who likes equations more than his fellow students.
In Silver Oak, Maryland, Alice Sherman is a high school junior enjoying lunch near her campus basketball court. This YA SF novel features a teen who must halt a virus that will kill two-thirds of humanity. And her choice of a tale for such treatment couldn't be more fortunate it's a natural for girls who have outgrown fairy tales but not the sort of romance that this one embodies. If McKinley doesn't bring Beauty and her family to memorable life, she does give them separate personalities, situations to respond to, and a stage on which to interact. Those little incidentals detailing how things come to pass do keep the story flowing pleasantly even for readers already acquainted with its outline.
But she does accomplish all of this with some success. Most limiting, McKinley doesn't seem to have done any speculating about Beauty's (or anyone's) motivation, but contents herself with providing background detail, elaborating on the descriptions of the enchanted castle, getting the plot from here to there via reasonably diverting sequences of events, etc.
It's simply a filling out of the story, with a few alterations: Beauty's sisters, who have romances of their own, are loving and good, and Beauty herself is misnamed, being plain as a child and only realizing her beauty after coming to love the beast. McKinley's novel-length retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" incorporates no shift in viewpoint, no special perspective (Freudian or whatever), no witty embroidery or extra dimension of any sort.
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