Brittany Fichter’s Before Beauty, presented as a polished Beauty and the Beast spin, reveals itself as a blunt encounter with Scripture: Everard’s curse of forgetting—His Maker and his first love—unfolds alongside imagery of repentance, judgment, and return. T
I picked up Brittany Fichter’s Before Beauty the way you pick up a familiar thing and hope it stays familiar—expecting a lovely, clean retelling of Beauty and the Beast.
Then the book walked straight into my chest.
At its core. Before Beauty is built around Everard. a prince who has forgotten his first love: a mysterious. gentle Maker who walked with him as a child. There is also an ancient, holy fortress—something that protects the kingdom, but also judges it. As Everard slowly slips into forgetting, a curse takes hold and transforms him into something monstrous. The only way to stop it is to return to trust and love.
As I read, the Scripture parallels didn’t just appear. They became impossible to miss.
Everard reads like a mirror for anyone who once knew the Lord and walked with him in the beginning—then let pride. hurt. and distraction pull them away until sin starts to disfigure the soul. The fortress functions like God the Father: holy. unapproachable in power. the source of all life and law—yet terrifying when its holiness is ignored. The Maker is unmistakably Christ: tender presence through visions, bearing wounds for Everard’s sake, and repeatedly whispering, “Come back. I’ve already made a way.”.
And Isabelle—young, wounded, and stubbornly truthful—pushes the story toward its spiritual center. She speaks truth into Everard’s life despite bearing injuries he inflicted, and she tends dying ground back to life. In the logic of the book, she feels like the Holy Spirit drawing a wandering heart home.
The text’s biblical weight snaps into focus through Revelation 2:4-5: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”
That verse doesn’t sit on the page as decoration. It becomes the book’s pressure point—what the narrative keeps circling until something breaks.
The turning point arrives when Everard finally remembers the Maker. He falls on his knees and does the will of the one he has tried to forget. no matter the cost. In that surrender. the fortress and the Maker move together to break the curse—repentance and redemption arriving in a “breathtaking picture. ” where the arms of God are open the instant a person returns to first love.
I closed Before Beauty with tears in my eyes. Not only because the romance is beautiful, but because I’d just watched the “prodigal son” story play out in a forbidden castle.
Fichter may not have set out to write an allegory. Yet the gospel is woven so deeply into the fabric of this tale that it preached to me.
It’s weird—though not really—that God can be found everywhere. Even when you’re not looking, He’s right beside you. The book’s message lands on that promise: God will never leave us nor forsake us. and He will work all things together for the good of those who love Him. There’s even a direct challenge to the idea that you can’t find God in anything: the story takes what the reader might call merely a retelling of one of their favorite Disney movies and puts God “right in my face” through it.
And there’s a warning braided into the reassurance. Discernment matters because many things can be bad for us or lead us astray. But not all things are. The book insists God sees the heart—He knows what you’re actually carrying.
By the final pages, Before Beauty leaves a message burning in the reader’s mind: never forget your first love. God isn’t one affection among many; He is worthy of first place, always. Life will bring grief, pain, and seasons that feel like curses. You will limp. You may wound others and be wounded. Trials come, and some of them will be fierce.
Still, the fortress that never fails and the Spirit who will never abandon you can be trusted. So can the Maker who has already bled for you.
The closing promise is unambiguous. He will never fail, never forsake, and never stop calling people home. No matter how far you’ve wandered or how deformed your choices have left you. the instant you turn and say. “I want to go home. ” the Father runs. the Son rejoices. and the Spirit carries you the rest of the way.
So keep God first, the book urges—love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Trust Him through every storm and every limp. Your first love is still waiting, arms open, whispering your name. You are never too far gone to return home.
Brittany Fichter Before Beauty Beauty and the Beast retelling Christian allegory gospel fiction Christ and Pop Culture Everard Isabelle fortress repentance Revelation 2:4-5 prodigal son culture news