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Jack Meggitt-Phillips

Författare till The Beast and the Bethany

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Book source ~ Tour

Ebenezer is 511 years old and for the first time in about 5 centuries he’s without the Beast. But he does have Bethany, the formerly beastly orphan he’s taken under his wing. And Claudette the parrot. Bethany decides they need to start doing good (they’re unsure what that entails), but a decent start would be getting rid of all the things the Beast has vomited up for Ebenezer over the years. However, something weird is going on and Claudette is acting strange on top of that. Can they figure it out before it all goes to heck in a handbasket?

This is a wonderfully horrible tale that anyone, both young and old, would love. There’s so much going on! Ebenezer and Bethany, well, mostly Bethany, have decided they need to do good instead of bad, but aren’t quite sure what that means. So, they ask around. One thing Bethany is determined to do is get rid of the things the Beast has vomited up for Ebenezer over the years. All those creatures and things Ebenezer fed to the Beast just so he could get all the items currently crammed into his house, it’s just not right. So Bethany sells them. Except, something weird is going on. Then there’s Claudette. What’s up with her? Ebenezer and Bethany are so wrapped up in their own issues they can’t see what’s happening to their parrot friend right in front of their eyes. Is it true, about not being able to teach an old dog new tricks? I hope for their sake it isn’t!
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
AVoraciousReader | 1 annan recension | Aug 16, 2022 |
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S REVENGE OF THE BEAST ABOUT?
At the end of The Beast and The Bethany, Bethany, Ebenezer, and Claudette (the Wintlorian purple-breasted parrot) were sure that The Beast was vanquished and they could start living their lives in a new direction.

They're de-Beasting their lives—getting rid of just about everything that The Beast magicked into existence for Ebenezer over the centuries—and they're devoting their energies to do-gooding. Bethany needs to make up to people for all her pranks, and Ebenezer has a lot of karmic debt to pay off (and Bethany's pushing him). He also is doing what he can to stay off the radar of the organization that's been chasing the Beast for more centuries than Ebenezer's been alive. That'll be easier to do without magic items laying around.

But as the title of this book suggests, they were wrong. The Beast isn't done yet, and he's out to get back at those three—and anyone else who happens to be in the general vicinity while he's at it.

Their do-gooding efforts stumble, the items they tried to divest themselves of start to behave strangely—and dangerously—for their new owners. No matter what they attempt to do, something goes wrong. It's time for some drastic measures.

COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING, ARE WE SURE THE BEAST IS THE WORST?
There are a handful of new characters introduced in this book, which helps in a few ways—it shows how much Bethany has changed Ebenezer's life by expanding his social world, and it adds a little flavor to the series. But there are three new characters* in particular I want to single out: The Cussocks. Mr. and Mrs. Cussock run the theater that plays a significant role in the novel and their daughter, Gloria. Gloria reminds me of the TV version of Nellie Oleson, without the redeeming characteristics. Nellie knew how she should act and just didn't care. I don't think Gloria knows how she should act, she's pure id. Once you get to know her parents, a bit, you start to see why. I'm not going to get into it, but just know that Gloria lives in the same orphanage that Bethany used to live in, because they just can't stand her (and have no problem letting everyone—including her—know that).

* I'm pretty sure they're new, they may have played minor roles in the first book. But I don't think so, and I'm too lazy to check..

It'd be easy in a book like this to make The Beast the epitome of all evil, and every human and animal nothing more than a potential victim. Bethany and Ebenezer have some restitution to do and need to reform, but they're trying. But as long as people like the Cussocks are around, the reader has to remember that people are capable of the same kind of evil as The Beast is. They don't have magic to help, and they don't get their sustenance from eating humans—which almost makes it worse, you could make a pragmatic argument for a lot of what The Beast does. But the Cussocks don't have that going for them.

(but to be clear, all four of them are truly reprehensible characters)

TRUE HORROR: THE FOOD
Sure, there's a magic being eating people, producing magical items, and inflicting all sorts of psychological damage; a possibly sociopathic little girl inflicting pain on her peers; and a centuries-old man wandering around in this book. But the true horror? The food designed by Bethany and others.

Bethany considers herself a sandwich artist. No, she'd probably be inclined to add the "e," she's a sandwich artiste. Some of the flavor combinations she comes up with would make me run start swallowing Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans by the handful without wondering/caring what flavors they'd be. They're fully at the intersection of incredibly imaginative and incredibly unappealing.

It's the kind of humor that an MG reader is practically guaranteed to enjoy.

ILLUSTRATIONS
I'm pretty sure neither of these books would be as successful without the contributions of Isabelle Follath. Her illustrations—sort of a mash-up of Eugene Yelchin, Quentin Blake, and Jules Feiffer—are attractive, eye-catching, and augment the text without being a distraction. I made more notes than usual about liking the artwork in this novel. Rather than further demonstrate how poorly I describe art, I'll just say that her stuff is great and leave it at that.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT REVENGE OF THE BEAST?
I know when I posted about The Beast and The Bethany, I was aware that it was the first of a series, but I have to tell you, I thought it made a great stand-alone book. So much so that I forgot there were more books to come, I got this one primarily out of curiosity about how Meggitt-Phillips would approach this, rather than a curiosity about the characters or story. I was satisfied with where the first book left things.

That said, if you're going to write an unnecessary sequel, this is the way you want to do it. Give some good backstory about the antagonist and one of the protagonists, and help the reader understand how they got started five centuries ago. Then while you're doing that, show how everything you thought happened at the end of the first book wasn't at all what was going on—so we need to read the sequel. It was really well-conceived in that way. But given the two that exist, we definitely need a third (which is, thankfully, on the way)

I think it's best if I think of this in two different ways, it's a creative way to tell this story, the morals are there for those who want to see them (again), but are easily ignored if that's what the reader prefers. The humor is a bit subtler this time out, but it's just as funny if you're looking for it. I was honestly surprised by a couple of plot developments, too. But...it just didn't work as well for me as its predecessor. Like I said with And Your Enemies Closer , a lot of that is likely just the way second novels in a trilogy strike me. But I don't think it's all of the reason why. I think it's probably a function of separating (for good and understandable reasons of plot) Ebenezer and Bethany for so much of the book. The series is stronger when they're together.

On the other hand, if I got this book when I was in Fifth Grade? I'd really dig it, and it would earn a spot in my Roald Dahl-Daniel M. Pinkwater-Norton Juster re-read cycle, right alongside The Beast and The Bethany, and I'd get it read at least four more times before the third volume is released. Since that guy is the one that Meggitt-Phillips is writing for, not the guy with four adult children—I figure that's good enough.

At least three of my four kids would've loved this when they were the right age (and it's possible that the fourth one would've, too)—and I'm willing to bet that whatever parents are reading this would find similar results in their homes. They should pick this up and see.
… (mer)
½
 
Flaggad
hcnewton | 1 annan recension | Feb 4, 2022 |
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S THE BEAST AND THE BETHANY ABOUT?
Ebenezer Tweezer has one goal in life—to keep on living. And he's been doing a good job of that for over five centuries. He's able to do this because of potions given to him by a magical Beast he met as a child. To keep the potions coming, he has to bring food to the Beast (who is only slightly more mobile than a caged bird). In return, the Beast magics money, treasures, and other gifts for Ebenezer.

The thing is, The Beast has peculiar tastes—monkeys, cacti, Ebenezer's beloved cat, endangered species, and so on. Now, it has a specific task for Ebenezer. The Beast wants to eat a human child. A nice plump one with rosy cheeks. Initially horrified, Ebenezer decides that he's really more interested in prolonging his own life enough that he can probably find a child easily enough.

It's actually not as easy as he initially thought, but he eventually brings one home and sets to fattening it up a little bit for The Beast. In those few days, Ebenezer starts to think that maybe there are things more important than living to 512.

THE BEAST
Shockingly, The Beast is the least interesting thing in this book. It's a large, grey, probably hideous looking, blob with tiny hands and feet. Its mouth is anything but small, much like its appetite. And that's the problem.

This amorphous and amoral antagonist has an avaricious appetite. It has an overwhelming desire for more and for novelty. It's not satisfied with being gluttonous, it wants something new, new experiences, new tastes, new flavors. If, like with its first victim in the book, the food happens to be rare, that's all the better. But what seems to drive it more than anything else is something it hasn't had before. For parents, caretakers, teachers who like to make young readers think about what they read will probably have a lot of fodder there.

But let's not get bogged down in that—it's mean, it's greedy, and it's not that bright and fairly helpless. It's these two things that will help the protagonists.

THE BETHANY
(I love that the title uses the definite article for her...I can just see the beleaguered teachers at her school doing that. "Oh, you've got The Bethany in your class this term? Better you than me..." "Did you hear what The Bethany did today?")

Bethany is...and I mean this in the strictly technical sense...a horrid, obnoxious, pill. And yes, yes, there are reasons for that, and we ought to understand that and exercise empathy toward her and try to help her. But at the beginning of this book, that's not the point. The point is that she's an ill-mannered bully, and that if Ebenezer had to pick a child to feed to the monster, you can certainly grant that she'd make a worthy nominee. Put in a slightly less homicidal way, Bethany is precisely the kind of girl who'd make Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle think of retiring.

Until—and this is the key—until she's shown some kindness (unintentionally, sure, but that's not important). When Ebenezer does nice things for her, extends her some courtesy—and inadvertently acts like a friend. That makes all the difference to Bethany, and she responds in kind (and probably ends up losing her definite article along the way). Those parents, caretakers, and teachers I mentioned earlier can really camp out on this point, I'm sure.

EBENEZER TWEEZER
When the book starts, it's easy to write off Ebenezer as merely The Beast's errand-boy. Sure, a 511-year-old errand boy, but an errand boy nonetheless. Then once you understand what he's doing and why...well, you lose pretty much all sympathy for him. Sure, some sort of alien, magical creature that only wants to eat is one thing, you can get that impulse. But Ebenezer has sold his metaphorical soul to him, in his Faustian bargain for a long life, Ebenezer has helped facilitate a swath of destruction through this world. And that just seems worse than The Beast's actions.

And for what? Money, years, and nice things? He might as well be Smaug.

But as soon as you're about to name him the true villain of the piece, he shows a little bit of a conscience. A teeny, tiny hint of one, but a conscience. Then, like the Grinch's heart, that conscience grows three sizes. And once he accidentally befriends The Bethany? Suddenly, this villain becomes something approximating a hero. Then when Bethany reciprocates his kindness, his friendship, well, then you can't help but cheer him on and wish him all the success. Parents, caregivers, teachers—you get where I'm going with this.

Throw in a backstory worthy of Heinz Doofenshmirtz and Ebenezer Tweezer turns out to be a character that could become a favorite after a re-read or two.

A BIT ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS
I've proven time and time again, that I'm just not that good with describing visual art or my reactions to it. So let me start with the simple—I liked Follath's work, it seemed to fit the flavor and feel of the text. Which is just what you're looking for, right?

My memory of Quentin Blake's work is pretty dim, but I can see why people would compare these illustrations to his work (although most of that probably has to do with comparisons to Dahl, see below). But the artist that came to mind—repeatedly—for me while reading this was Jules Feiffer. Stylistically, there's a lot to distinguish the two—but there's some quality that I can't put a name to that made me think of Feiffer.

I'm also not sure how big the art is in hard copy, how much of a page it'll take up. In my eARC, the illustrations are typically pretty small—like they wouldn't take up much room on a page. That's a shame—if that's true for the hard copy, I'd recommend getting a magnifying lens, so you can take in the detail. If you're reading an e-copy, you should be able to zoom in/magnify the pictures with a click or a reverse pinch. Do so, you'll be glad you did.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE BEAST AND THE BETHANY?
I think it's pretty clear that I liked The Beast and the Bethany—I've certainly talked enough about it. It's a solid story with great characters, told in a clever way—just enough humor and wit to make this truly disturbing tale pretty entertaining and diverting. There's even a nice little moral or two embedded in the text, but delivered in such a way that the target audience can ignore them so they can focus on Bethany's efforts not to get eaten.*

* While the morals percolate in the reader's subconscious, where it'll do some good.

I've seen a lot of comparisons to Roald Dahl used in discussions of this book. Those may be fair and apt, I don't remember enough of Dahl's work to make them myself (nothing against the guy, I remember positive experiences with his works, but he was never a favorite). For me, this reads like a latter-day Daniel M. Pinkwater.* I don't know what kind of audience he has today (I certainly had a hard time finding his stuff when I had kids the right ages), but I remember spending a lot of time in elementary school rereading and rereading books like Lizard Music, The Hoboken Chicken Emergency, I Was a Second Grade Werewolf—which combined horror elements, odd humor, and snappy writing. Just like this book. I couldn't tell you the last time I thought about him—but I wasn't far into this book when I started thinking about Pinkwater.

* It may not be fair to say latter-day, as Pinkwater's still putting out books.

Put another way, this is the kind of book to give a middle grader that you want to turn into an A. Lee Martinez fan. I'm not sure how many people have that as a goal (it'd be a worthy one), but it'd work. If you are an A. Lee Martinez reader and are thinking about reading this book yourself or getting it for someone younger, this is right up your alley.*

* Conversely, if you're looking for something like this written for adults, check out Martinez.

For laughs, for a warm fuzzy or two, for a little bit of horror, for a fun read for readers of all ages, The Beast and The Bethany is an almost sure-fire winner.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
hcnewton | 1 annan recension | Sep 23, 2020 |
Book source ~ Tour

Ebenezer Tweezer (hehe it rhymes) is 511 yrs old. Say what? Yep. You read that right. Is he a vampire? Is it magic? Nope and sorta. In order to stay young Ebenezer has to feed a beast who lives in the attic of his 15 story (!) house. Feed the beast and the beast coughs up a magical youth potion which The Ebmeister has to take once a year. The rest of the year, the beast coughs up whatever Ebbie desires. Sounds easy, right? And for a while it was. But then the beast started demanding more exotic fare which bothered Ebenezer a bit, but not enough to give up his youth. When the beast demands a child to eat, that’s when things fall to pieces. Not literally though I wouldn’t have been surprised.

So, who wouldn’t want a magical beast, no matter how gross and stinky, to barf up anything you want including potions to stay young and all you had to do was feed it things it considers nommable? Considering I cleaned up after six kids (not to mention many furkids) I think I could handle that. But feeding a child to it? Even one so extremely bratty as Bethany? I’d have to draw the line. Probably. I mean, definitely.

If you’re looking for a wildly fantastic tail tale that is reminiscent of Lemony Snicket then look no further. This is one middle grade fantasy that will entertain as well as horrify, has great characters, a decent plot, and splashes of humor tossed into the mix. In fact, I believe it would be perfect to feed to the beast. Quite unique and eminently satisfying.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
AVoraciousReader | 1 annan recension | Aug 26, 2020 |

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Associerade författare

Isabelle Follath Illustrator
Marja Helanen Translator

Statistik

Verk
4
Medlemmar
92
Popularitet
#202,476
Betyg
3.9
Recensioner
4
ISBN
33
Språk
3

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