Review Detail

I stumbled across this book on B&N while I was spending my Christmas cash. After reading the little excpert they had up, I knew right away that I had to read this book. So worth my money.

Initially what drew me into this was the writing. Reed’s style is absolutely phenomenal. It’s the sort I look for in my YA reads. As a genre, YA doesn’t do much for me character development-wise, and I’m not too picky about plots. So it all comes down to the writing. Authors like Markus Zusak and Tahereh Mafi are what I like about YA, and what keeps me coming back. Amy Reed and Beautiful easily matched up to their standards.

Some stand-out quotes:

“There is a picture of me in their heads, a picture of someone I don’t know yet. She is not the chubby girl with the braces and bad perm. She is not the girl hiding in the bathroom at recess. She is someone new, a blank slate they have named beautiful. That is what I am now: beautiful, with this new body and face and hair and clothes. Beautiful, with this erasing of history.”

And:

“Smoke is not chasing me and making my eyes sweat. My eyes are not burning. I am not crying. I am not standing behind my mother and she is not facing the wall and she is not saying, ‘Smoke follows beauty.’
Smoke follows beauty. Smoke follows beauty. Smoke follows beauty.”

Just wow, you guys.

Like Amy Efaw’s After, this book deals with a less-than-nice situation. And while Reed doesn’t justify or applaud Cassie’s actions in any way, it makes them understandable to a reader who’s never been in a similar position. That’s what I love about realistic, contemporary YA. Authors like Efaw and Reed make ugly things readable. They don’t condone the ugly things, but they make them accessible.

I mean, it’s one thing to hear about a seventh grader having sex and using drugs and hanging out with abusive friends, but it’s something else entirely to connect that reality to something that actually happens. Amy Reed’s Beautiful does that.
Verdict: This book is harsh and unnerving. It deals with real issues and doesn’t apoligize for it. The combination of honesty and lyric writing was a killer for me. If you can deal with uncomfortable situations, I definitely recommend reading this one.