Beautiful [Hardcover]

Amy Reed (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 2009

When Cassie moves from the tiny town where she has always lived to a suburb of Seattle, she is determined to leave her boring, good-girl existence behind. This is Cassie’s chance to stop being invisible and become the kind of girl who’s worth noticing.

Stepping into her new identity turns out to be easier than Cassie could have ever imagined...one moment, one choice, will change everything.

Cassie’s new existence both thrills and terrifies her. Swept into a world of illicit parties and social landmines, she sheds her virginity, embraces the numbness she feels from the drugs, and floats through it all, knowing that she is now called beautiful. She ignores the dangers of her fast-paced life…but she can’t sidestep the secrets and the cruelty.

Cassie is trapped in a swift downward spiral tinged with violence and abuse, and no one—not even the one person she thought she could trust—can help her now.

“Beautiful is stark, disquieting and, quite simply, riveting. Amy Reed is an author to keep on your radar.” --Ellen Hopkins, bestselling author of Crank

“A latter-day Go Ask Alice, Beautiful is raw, gritty, and powerful, an intense ice-pick jab to the heart. A stunning debut and a must-read.” --R.A. Nelson, author of Teach Me

"In crisp, clean prose Amy Reed places the reader right into the heart and mind and life of a girl who makes the choice to be one of the beautiful ones. Reed gives a disturbing and concise snapshot of what it can be like today for teens struggling with self-identity and peer acceptance when in a heartbeat they follow the 'wrong road.'" --M. Sindy Felin, National Book Award Finalist for Touching Snow

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—Thirteen-year-old Cassie has bloomed. Following her family's move from an island off the coast of Washington to a Seattle suburb, she has a new attractiveness that earns her the moniker "the beautiful seventh grader." Her good looks and willingness to conform are a passport to her school's powerful clique of druggies led by Alex, a frightening but charismatic fellow seventh grader who adopts Cassie as her best friend. Cassie's compliance with Alex's demands—to burn photographs of former friends, to take acid, to have sex—secures her a position as Alex's second in command but threatens her health and safety. When Alex's half sister Sarah moves in with Alex and her wasted mother, Cassie finds her allegiance shifting from her best friend to Sarah. Reed's first novel owes a tremendous debt to Catherine Hardwicke's 2002 film Thirteen; however, where the filmic treatment of its 13-year-old heroines' dangerous experimentation is complicated by the richness of their characters and their interactions with one another and the supporting cast, this novel is less complex and more sensational. It is difficult to discern motivation for many of the characters, whose actions—Alex's in particular—are explained in almost clichéd form, and the secondary characters are one-dimensional.—Amy S. Pattee, Simmons College, Boston
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Review

"[Beautiful] is essentially a new-millenium Go Ask Alice with a similar blend of cautionary horror story and weirdly fascinated detail . . . . Chilling narration . . . . There's boldness in the book's willingness to make Cassie unsympathetic at times . . . . Train-wreck fascination galore . . . . It'll probably be passed around enthusiastically."

--The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November 2009.

"The gift in this book [Beautiful] is Reed's ability to find the perfect words and use them in ways for which the reader is not ready. The writing is lonely, haunting, sensuous, and oddly beautiful."

--VOYA, August 2010

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse; 1 edition (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416978305
• ISBN-13: 978-1416978305
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #693,168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Amy Reed was born and raised in and around Seattle, where she attended a total of eight schools by the time she was eighteen. Constant moving taught her to be restless, and being an only child made her imagination do funny things. After a brief stint at Reed College (no relation), she moved to San Francisco and spent the next several years serving coffee and getting into trouble. She eventually graduated from film school, promptly decided she wanted nothing to do with filmmaking, returned to her original and impractical love of writing, and earned her MFA from New College of California.

Her short work has been published in journals such as Kitchen Sink, Contrary, and Fiction. Her first Young Adult novel BEAUTIFUL will be released October 6, 2009 (Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster).

Amy currently lives in Oakland, California with her husband, two cats, and one dog, and has accepted that northern California has replaced the Pacific Northwest as her home. She is no longer restless.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ, February 8, 2010

By 

J. Vernick - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beautiful (Hardcover)

i am 14 yrs old and a freshman, this book is deep and gave me a whole different perspective on other 13-14 year olds, i normally read about rich girls with glamorous lives. but this was different, it had meaning. i recommend to anyone who wants to read a good book!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Harmony Book Reviews, October 18, 2009

By 

Harmony Book Reviews "Harmony" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Beautiful (Hardcover)

Beautiful is one of those book you expect to be good from the start. The cover draws you in first, then the summary, and when you start it, the first chapter alone makes you want more.

While I can't relate to a lot of what happened in the book, as I am extremely straight-edge, I could relate to Cassie and I think a lot of other girls will also be able to. All of us have to deal with feelings we can't control, peer pressure, crushes, and wanting to fit in, among all of the other things Cassie has to deal with and that makes Beautiful more realistic for teens who find Cassie's world foreign.

As much as I loved Cassie and the plot, I would've loved to see some of the minor characters developed more because I kept confusing some of them and I also would've liked to have seen more added onto the ending, though that's partly because I didn't want to see the book end.

Overall, I completely recommend this but only for older/mature teens, due to the content. (I also think fans of Stephanie Kuehnert's books would enjoy this.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really great read., October 1, 2009

By 

The Book Scout - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beautiful (Hardcover)

Beautiful was an interesting change from what I've been reading lately. The last few books I've read- The Hollow, Hush Hush...- have all been fantasy. Beautiful was a real book about what could be a real person. Cassie kind of reminded me of Christina in Crank by Ellen Hopkins at first. She had good grades, friends, and a family, but other than that, this book was completely different than Crank or any other book I've read about someone dealing with drugs. From the girl on the cover I assumed Cassie was in high school or older, not the case. Cassie was only thirteen. She was dragged into the drug world by another girl- one who was equally friendless. Alex hung out with high school age kids, went to wild parties, did drugs, drank, smoked, and never thought twice about doing anything. Cassie, shy, friendless, lonely, and new to the school was tempted to join Alex' excited world, where boys called her "beautiful" and everyone wanted to be her friend. I liked how this book was in first person so I could really see when Cassie began to change and read all her feelings about everything. Beautiful was detailed and original and thoroughly described the life of a girl like Cassie.

One thing I didn't really like about this book was that Cassie changed too fast. One minute she was shy and studious, the next she's off partying with people way older than she and doing drugs like she always has. Cassie goes from barely even talking to boys to having sex all the time. Maybe this was too show how when you're taking drugs and drinking your life can get out of your hands, but sometimes I felt like it was a little unrealistic. All in all this was a book that I'm really glad I read. It was informative, sad, scary, and everything in between. Cassie's story was from the heart and you wanted to help her, but could do nothing. The reader is like a by stander watching Cassie from behind a glass wall, unable to help. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone under thirteen. There was bad language, sex, drinking, drugs, etc. This is a book you'll definitely want to pick up if you're a fan of Ellen Hopkins work or books like Go Ask Alice. The cover is another great feature of the book- I love the lipstick writing of the title.

Rating;

Plot: 9/10

Characters: 9/10

Ending: 8/10

Enjoyment: 9/10 (It's not that I enjoyed it, I mean can you really enjoy a book about someone taking drugs? It was just well written with an important message, etc.)

Cover: 10/10

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Overall: 45/50= 90%