Beauty and the Beast: Act Two - Megan Kearney

Title: Beauty and the Beast: Act Two
Author: Megan Kearney
Publisher: The Quietly, 2016 (Paperback)
Length: 325 pages
Genre: Young Adult/Adult, Graphic Novel, Fairy Tale
Started: May 17, 2017
Finished: May 17, 2017

Summary:
From the back cover:

A Man with no Heart is a Beast...

When Beauty came to the Castle to take her father's place, neither she nor The Beast could have anticipated the depth of the bond that would blossom between them. As Beauty tries to reconcile her sympathy for The Beast with her longing for home, he struggles to balance the demands of his unfeeling master with his growing affection for Beauty.

Events of the past cast a long shadow over the uncertain pair. They know nothing comes without a price, but an impossible love could be costly indeed...

Review:
Piggybacking off the last review of Act One of this series, Act Two is nearly double the size of the previous volume and packs a greater emotional punch (so many feels).

After the cliffhanger at the end of Act One, this volume starts off with flashbacks from The Beast's human past and quickly becomes a testament to the changing relationship between him and Beauty. This instalment reads like a slow tease, both in the romantic sense and in terms of the plot, slowly uncovering the mysteries of the story that still haven't been fully revealed yet. You might not notice it on the first reading, but on subsequent readings the symbolism and other references are more noticeable. My favourite scene for this is in Chapter Six where The Beast and Beauty are walking through a corridor and the paintings all around them are scenes from various myths and folktales featuring animal brides and grooms. Since I'm such a geek, I had fun trying to see how many I could identify at first glance and how many required looking up information to figure it out.

Recommendation:
As with Act One, you just need to read this, trust me. Act One and Two books can be purchased here. The entire comic, including Act Three which is currently in progress, can be read here.

Thoughts on the cover:
As with any series, I appreciate the continuity between covers for Act One and Act Two: a similar layout and colour schemes that go together so they look nice on a shelf side by side. The cover image is simply gorgeous, and I love the addition of Argus on the bottom.