(Really Not So) Beautiful

Thirteen-year-old Cassie is attending a new school where she gets swept into the wrong crowd in the worst kind of way. This book is edgy YA, one of those ‘unflinching view’ type of stories that describe in painful detail her descent into a miserable world of drugs, alcohol, joyless sex, and emotional abuse.

Sounds great, huh?

I normally have difficulty with unlikable protagonists. But this book is written with such immediacy and with such a constant presence of tension that it is extremely compelling. In fact for the most part, I found it difficult to put down. We read edgy and disturbing books, generally waiting for a redemptive resolution. That makes the read even more satisfying. Although some of those elements are present here, the ending is not as cathartic as it might have been and wasn’t the high point of the novel for me. It was that constant sense of tension and threat that made this such an engrossing read.