I loved this book! Recently I have been rather interested in reading fairy tale retellings of Beauty and the Beast and when I saw the cover of this book, it caught my eye and I just had to read it. 
 The world building was unique and captivating, it wasn't anything of this world, not any of the places that we know off because it takes place in a whole other universe/dimension. Of course, at first there wasn't much detail information about the world Isra lives seeing as how she is blind, but what she does tell us, is interesting enough. We get to know about the past, the history that went down and caused the rift between the Monstrous and the Smooth Skin and how the world is at the present time. When Isra gets her sight back, we get a peek at how her people are really doing and although I would have liked to known more about Gem's people, I was still glad that we got small snippets of the Desert People. 
 This story was told in different points of views, and I liked reading what was going on in differing point of views of Isra, Gem, and Bo. For one second I thought it was going to be more than 3 characters POV and I thought I was going to be so confused, but I'm glad Stacey Jay chose to do only 3 POVs since they all blended well together. 
 Seeing as how I hate love triangles, as soon as Bo entered the picture and started off by kissing her out of the blue and it seemed like she felt something for him, I almost put the book down and quit reading but I reminded myself that it was a Beauty and the Beast retelling and so Isra was going to end up with Gem. Of course, reading Bo's parts just assured me more of the fact that he was two-faced, to a degree, and that he wasn't going to be with Isra (view spoiler)[although he did end up marrying Isra against her will (hide spoiler)] 
 As for the characters, I loved how well portrayed they each were. They weren't the moving and talking furniture pieces of the Disney movie but Isra's friend/maid/servant was named Needle and she was mute (view spoiler)[until the very end when she left the dome and ventured outside to the desert and the magic healed her/gave her voice back (hide spoiler)]. As for Beauty and the Beast: Isra was Beauty, but since she was blind, she was led to believe that she was tainted, that she had scales on her skin that made her seem like the Monstrous, but in reality she was a regular Smooth Skin with irritated skin. Isra didn't believe that she was beautiful, she thought she was ugly since she was little, but when she regained her sight (view spoiler)[she was being poisoned by Janjie, Bo's father, so she wouldn't see (hide spoiler)], she suddenly saw herself as she truly was beautiful and Gem, she also saw him: the Beast. Gem was one of the Desert People, a Monstrous who lived in the desert outside the domed city with scales and claws, unlike the furry Beast from the Disney adaptation, and was such an fascinating character to see grow throughout the book. All of them were. 
 I would say more but I wouldn't want to ruin this book for anyone who has yet to read this book but I will say that it's one of my favorite books I've read so far this year!