'Beast' gave me pretty much exactly what I (and I imagine anyone else who would pick it up) wanted.

The plot is basically right there on the cover, so this is a case in which you can in fact judge the book thereby.

Set in Bermuda, we follow a large enough cast of characters that you just know not everyone's going to make it. They aren't always super fleshed out or easy to differentiate from each other, but who cares? We're here for some giant squid destructo-action!

And the squid is easily the best character.

We get quite a number of chapters from its perspective, and they're some of the best parts of the book. Being in the squid's head is eerie, but puts you in a position to empathize later on, particularly as we're reminded by the obligatory scientist character that the squid isn't evil; it's just surviving.

That message is made a little hazy due to the unavoidable humanizing of the squid in its POV chapters (given that to some extent a human writing about an animal will, by necessity, make that animal a little bit human), and by the end it's sort of ambiguous whether or not the squid is out to get these people specifically.

But boy oh boy do you get a hell of a climax after nearly an entire novel of anticipation.

It was interesting to learn a little bit about the squid, as a lot of its characterization feels well-researched. The sections where the characters are learning more about the history of the giant squid through old accounts is particularly interesting, though of course one has to take it all with a slight grain of salt.

I also liked the extention of that research in a conversation between one of the protagonists and the scientist:

"I've been waiting my whole life for this, for the chance to find a giant squid. It's my dragon."
"It's a dragon now, is it?"
"I think of it that way. That's why I called my book The Last Dragon. Man needs dragons, he always has, to explain the unknown. You've seen the old maps. When they drew unknown lands, they'd write 'Here be dragons,' and that said it all."

The ending was perfectly set up, and tied in the major, overarching theme which is one of the need for ocean conservation, something Peter Benchley was a major advocate for.

A lot of time is dedicated to laying out the tragedy of what happens when humans destroy something they claim to love, in this case the ocean.

Even though the giant squid--the monster--is what gets you to pick 'Beast' up, Benchley is very careful to make it clear fairly early on who the real villains of the story are.

I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a good 'action film' sort of reading experience that has its heart very much in the right place.