Customer Reviews

Beautiful Americans

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was one of my fastest reads recently. I could hardly put the book down! It doesn't have much depth or literary value, but it's definitely a piece of fun chick lit perfect for leisurely reading. I loved it and am hoping for a sequel!

Gold Star Award Winner!

BEAUTIFUL AMERICANS by Lucy Silag is the story of four very different American teenagers studying abroad for a year in Paris. For PJ, Olivia, Alex and Zack, Paris is a place to run away, reinvent oneself, find love, and discover what it really means to live. Like the Lost Generation of the 1920s, these Americans escape to the City of Lights with the hope that the joie de vivre of the city will rub off on them.

PJ is fleeing from an embarrassing family scandal and hoping that she can leave her past behind in Vermont. This year is her chance to bury her secrets and emerge as a whole new person.

Olivia comes to Paris to train at a prestigious ballet academy. Her meticulously planned out future hinges on a perfect year, but sometimes life doesn't go according to plan.

Alex is a well-coiffed fashionista - thanks to her Manhattan upbringing - looking to find the perfect guy in the most romantic city in the world. However, sometimes even Alex cannot have everything she wants.

Zack is from Memphis, where being gay was never socially acceptable. Now that he is free from his conservative background, he has the same goals as Alex - to find a boyfriend and maybe even fall in love.

The story is told from alternating perspectives among the four main characters, and Silag achieves a delicate balance between their four individual stories while maintaining a cohesive plot. Four extraordinary stories told in a surprisingly believable manner. Getting to know each character from the perceptions of the others adds a compelling layer of reality to the story, revealing the faults of each character that can only be seen through the eyes of others.

This first book in the series leaves readers dangling at Christmastime, halfway through the exchange year, with one member of the quartet running away. For the mysteries and secrets that are not yet revealed, pick up the second BEAUTIFUL AMERICANS book in Fall 2009.

Reviewed by: Amber Gibson

I think Beautiful Americans is a great book--for teenagers and for adults. It is extremely entertaining, but at the same time, has an emotional power that I didn't fully recognize until the end. I read this book in two days!

Beautiful Americans was an engaging and exciting book. For anyone that has dreamed of studying abroad this book is for you and for anyone that wants to relive their study abroad experience this book is for you too! Told through 4 voices, everyone is bound to identify with one of the characters. I personally saw a little bit of myself in each of the four characters (PJ, Olivia, Alex, and Zack). Also, each of their 4 overlapping story lines fought for the spotlight, I couldn't pick a favorite!

We have PJ, who can't leave a family problem behind and it effects everything she does. Zack who is ready to come out of the closet and meet a cute boy, but his shyness holds him back. And Olivia, the good girl with her life all planned out at home, with a sweet boyfriend waiting for her. I felt I understood where all the characters were coming from aside from Alex, a New York fashionista who gets everything and everyone she wants.

At first I really liked Alex but then time after time she walked all over everyone and did anything she wanted, assuming that just saying sorry every time would make it all better. She was too focused on herself to really notice anyone else being effected by her until after she had hurt them. I'm really hoping that she redeems herself in the second book. I really want to like her! But, one thing I really liked about this book was being able to see each character from their own perspective and then everyone else's. It's really interesting to see what they keep inside compared to what they show the world, as will everyone.

The book takes place during the first semester of a year year long study abroad experience. I personally cannot wait to see where the story picks up and what is going on with all the characters when the story continues!

Lucy Silag has created a terrific world, sort of "Gossip Girls go to Paris," and you will want to get on the plane immediately. Her characters are so real and interesting that you and your teen will be fighting over who gets to read it. Actually a wonderful book to read together. Loved it.

I read this entire book in 2 days! It's a quick read because you don't want to put it down. It's aimed at a little younger age group (I'm 30), but there are enough adult situations to keep you hooked. Some of the negative reviews I've read are people that feel like they didn't get enough of a background on the characters, but isn't that the point of a trilogy? Keep reading!

This novel about American teens at a boarding school in Paris is way too much fun. It's a perfect way to escape the drudgery of every day life; by entering the minds of precocious teens who enjoy top notch fashion and dramatic romance while unraveling mysteries! Ahh...I remember those days. The only thing I don't like about the book is that I have to wait to read the second one!!! Maybe I'll read the this again while I wait :)

Lucy Silag's model might be more Stephanie Meyer than Jane Austen, but don't mistake this debut novel for another XXOO wannabe. It's a funny, smart novel, with fresh characters and a finish-it-tonight plot.

When Alex leaves for the fabulous Lycée de Monceau, she knows she's going to be the most popular girl there. The French school offers American high school students a special opportunity if they are especially dedicated learners of French. Alex's (absent) father was French, so she has it in the bag. Going to Paris for her is about meeting boys (American ones, though) and shopping.

Alex first meets PJ in the airport, when PJ is begging at the counter for a ticket to Paris. Astonished, Alex upgrades herself to first class and gives PJ her coach ticket. She can tell right away that the disheveled PJ will not be around long, so there's no point in making friends. Zack, on the other hand, is a sweet Southern boy and is the type of guy Alex wants to know. He becomes the Will to her Grace --- or, maybe more accurately, given Alex's shopping habits, the Will to her Karen.

Olivia arrives in Paris ready for school and for ballet, and is soon accepted at a prestigious ballet school. She becomes friends with both PJ and Alex, but PJ and Alex can't seem to get along.

When everyone meets their host parents and they start classes, the real adventures --- and drama --- begin. Olivia desperately misses her boyfriend, but having a long-distance relationship is hard, especially when there seems to be so many other guys interested in you. Alex can't curb her shopping habit and has a shock when her mother cuts off her credit card. PJ has a huge secret she wants to run away from, but her host parents seem to have one as well. And Zack wants to take the opportunity in Paris to find his first boyfriend.

BEAUTIFUL AMERICANS alternates its narrators, so you can see Paris from four different points of view. Peppered with French phrases, it will instantly incite in you a need to go visit the city for yourself.

I had mixed feelings about this novel, which begins a series that will continue in the fall. It's not just a wannabe Gossip Girl or The Clique, and for that I'm grateful. At times, though, it feels as if it's trying to be the same thing, just set in a new place. Still, I want to think that BEAUTIFUL AMERICANS is more than that, and in many ways it is, because its characters have better vocabularies, obviously do well enough in school to deserve the opportunity to be in Paris, and most of them have more interesting hobbies than shopping. But coupled with the intelligent lexicon is the somewhat obvious plot and juvenile construction, with predictable suspense about each character worrying that another will find out his or her terrible secret.

That doesn't make BEAUTIFUL AMERICANS an unworthy read, however. The book is entertaining and mostly intriguing, and the romance of its setting makes it hard to put down. It does end in medias res, so we'll see what the sequel has to offer.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Hannah Gómez

I went crazy for Beautiful Americans! I practically read it in one sitting and was just dying for the sequel by the last page. Silag is a snappy writer and her characters are wonderfully enchanting. She absolutely nails the experience of being an exchange student: from the fast friendships with fellow students, the awkwardness with host families, that first taste of freedom as only the Europeans can do it...

For anyone who loves Gossip Girl, Paris or tales of bright young things going abroad and getting up to no good, this is a true delight. A divine treat from a promising your writer.