Crazy Beautiful [Hardcover]

Lauren Baratz-Logsted (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2009

In an explosion of his own making, Lucius blew his arms off. Now he has hooks. He chose hooks because they were cheaper. He chose hooks because he wouldn’t outgrow them so quickly. He chose hooks so that everyone would know he was different, so he would scare even himself.

Then he meets Aurora. The hooks don’t scare her. They don’t keep her away. In fact, they don’t make any difference at all to her.

But to Lucius, they mean everything. They remind him of the beast he is inside. Perhaps Aurora is his Beauty, destined to set his soul free from its suffering.

Or maybe she’s just a girl who needs love just like he does.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—Sophomore Lucius Wolfe lost both hands in an explosion of his own making, and now he is left to pick up the pieces—with steel hooks. The story is told in alternating chapters by Lucius (Crazy) and Aurora (Beautiful). Baratz-Logsted does a deft job of weaving the perspectives together to show events from both points of view. Lucius chooses a bus seat so as to be left alone and is immediately called "crip"; Aurora gets on the same bus, smiles at people, and hears a voice call "New girl! Come sit back here with us." It doesn't help that Lucius has an air of arrogance about him and has changed schools to find a new start. The author spends equal time on several plotlines: Lucius, the brilliant loner destructo-kid, his amusing sister and his dysfunctional family; Aurora and her newly widowed saintly father; Nick, the good-guy security guard with dreams of the NFL; a school play; a false accusation; and Cecelia and Jessup, the scheming spurned lovers. Resolving everything makes the final chapters feel rushed and too perfect. However, the pacing is energetic and the topics current. Readers who have outgrown MJ Auch's One-Handed Catch and aren't quite ready for Harriet McBryde Johnson's Accidents of Nature (both Holt, 2006) might enjoy Crazy Beautiful.—Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX
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Review

" . . . a powerful story about recovery and friendship."--Kirkus Reviews

"The story is told in alternating chapters...Baratz-Logsted does a deft job of weaving the perspectives together to show events from both points of view ...the pacing is energetic and the topics current." - School Library Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; First Edition edition (September 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547223072
• ISBN-13: 978-0547223070
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,446,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was an independent bookseller and buyer for 11 years before deciding to take a chance on myself as a novelist. While trying to sell my books, I worked variously as a Publishers Weekly reviewer, a freelance editor, a sort-of librarian, and a window washer. My first novel, The Thin Pink Line, about a woman who fakes an entire pregnancy, was published by Red Dress Ink in 2003 as their own first-ever hardcover. It was published in 11 countries and was the first book from any Harlequin imprint ever to receive a starred Kirkus review. I've since had over 20 books published for adults (Vertigo), teens (The Twin's Daughter) and children (The Sisters 8 series, created with my husband and daughter). Recently, I've published a few ebooks as well, including a comedic romance for adults, The Bro-Magnet. I live in Danbury, CT, with my wonderful husband Greg and my equally wonderful daughter Jackie.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not one pirate. August 13, 2010

By Christy Leigh Stewart

Format:Hardcover

Giving your main character hooks for hands is a dirty trick. It made me hold out hope for this damn book until the end but it was hopless.

Terrible and slow and amateurish and......f---ing hook hands! I fall for it every time!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Lukewarm Retelling of Beauty & the Beast August 16, 2010

By Emily Chen

Format:Hardcover

Ever since the explosion that blew apart his family's home and left him a double amputee, Lucius Wolfe has felt like an outcast from society. His prosthetics remind him daily of all the things he's no longer able to do, and the metal hooks that have replaced his hands brand him as a freak, an outsider. To make it all worse, he's starting over at a new high school, where he knows absolutely no one, and dreads the stares and the whispers that will follow him around once people get a look at his prosthetic arms.

Aurora is also starting over-ever since her mother passed away after a long bout with cancer, she and her father have been trying to rebuild some semblance of a normal life. Unlike Lucius, on her first day at her new high school Aurora is immediately accepted into the popular crowd because of her good looks and warm personality.

Nonetheless, the two strike up an instant connection and must learn to navigate the difficult teenage world of friendship, drama, love, and loss.

Crazy Beautiful is touted as a modern-day, high school retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I can certainly see that, and I think Baratz-Logsted was fairly successful in keeping the traditional story and making it modern at the same time.

I think what I most enjoyed was the humor and wit from our narrators (mostly Lucius), as well as the many references to pop culture and recent events (on the other hands, it will make this book less relevant to future readers). I also liked Lucius' little sister, Misty, who added a great deal of funny to the novel. Aurora, our heroine, was basically the Perfect Teenage Girl, to the point where she seemed highly unrealistic to me and honestly kind of lacked a personality, other than being Good, and Righteous, and Perfect.

Overall I think Crazy Beautiful was just a little bit too predictable for me. All the characters other than Lucius himself were 2-dimensional and fairly stereotypical. I will say that I very much enjoyed Lucius as a narrator, and Baratz-Logsted wrote him as a very honest and wry voice.

I read a lot of glowing reviews for this one, but I found it to be mainly, again, predictable and it kind of just went through the typical cliches present in books about high school and teenagers. In terms of fairy-tale retellings, this wasn't my favorite. Even as a young adult novel on its own, it was fairly tepid and didn't wow me. The romance was to be expected, and that was that.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Terrible January 3, 2011

By Boobies

Format:Paperback

Let me say that I rarely hate books. But this one...it just sucked. The female portangonist, Aurora, lacked any depth what-so-ever. She was "perfect": beautiful,, smart, nice, talented. She also wasn't modest, not hesistating to tell the readers about how good of an actress she was and how she got all the star roles in each play, even as a freshman. We get it author, Aurora is perfect. Her entire character ruined the novel.

Then there's Lucius. He had depth, unlike most characters in this novel. He was witty yet twisted, and I kinda liked that. I could truly relate with him a bit.

All in all, this book sucked. The characters and plot has major holes.