Nightmares & Fairy Tales: Beautiful Beasts

I like the ideas of Annabelle tying the stories together and the twists within the stories were interesting but for the most part they all felt cut short, like something was missing and the story was rushed to get to the end. I would have preferred perhaps one less story if it would mean more time spent on some of the others. The art was also very inconsistent within each story making it hard for me to get into the stories that way.

So far, out of the three I've read this is the weakest offering. Interesting ideas but it falls short on execution.

Ragdoll Annabelle is back for another installment of stories tinged with horror and fairy tale elements in the second graphic novel in the series. She is still with Gwen who seems to be the first girl to actually be able to hear her and they spend their nights telling each other stories about her previous female owners. The first is about the first owner Annabelle can remember from the modern world. Paige is a lovely 1920's flapper who keeps seeing a strange man named August. She gets frustrated when other people don't seem to be able to see him and it turns out he is a ghost. They find a way to be together that is perhaps not the most desirable. The second story is a reworking Little Red Riding Hood with Luna trying to stop her father show more from killing wolves. Her mother sends her to live with her grandmother after a wolf kills her father and she befriends one of the local young men on the way. A mixture of fairy tale and werewolf mythology. The third tale concerns Gwen herself as she makes a new friend at school. She isn't quite what she seems and it takes the fairies help to save Gwen from being trapped forever in a mirror in a haunted house.

Next is a different take on Beauty and the Beast. Belle is in love with Rose, but her father finds out and bannishes Rose chaining his daughter Belle in a room alone. One day he travels from home and meets the Beast, offering Belle's life instead of his own. She goes to live with the Beast and finds much more than she bargained for. The final tale is in two parts about Catherine. She is a nurse to a particularly delusional and poisonous woman Vivianne who is convinced Catherine is having an affair with her husband. She passes on this view to their daughter after her death and Catherine is haunted by the ghost of Vivanne after she does end up marrying her widowed husband. She is taken to the brink of insanity and left alone in an assylum stuck with her visions and nightmares.

Beautifully drawn again, I preferred this one over the first installment. I think the tales were a little bit better crafted and I enjoyed the subjects and personalities more. I look forward to reading more in the series and learning about where Annabelle came from and seeing what else happens to the lovely little Gwen. show less

Dark, twisted gothic humor, with a touching storyline.

Book two in the Nightmares and Fairy Tales series.

Annabelle the rag doll continues telling the stories of those she's loved. Horror stories mixed with fairy tale retellings.