Natasha Friend tackles teenage shallowness in a beautiful way. Rating: 4.5/5

*This is book #6/28 for my 2014 book challenge. You can take a look at the reading challenge here.

What if you lost the thing that made you who you are?

Lexi has always been stunning. Her butter-colored hair and perfect features have helped her attract friends, a boyfriend, and the attention of a modeling scout. But everything changes the night Lexi’s face goes through a windshield. Now she’s not sure what’s worse: the scars she’ll have to live with forever, or what she saw going on between her best friend and her boyfriend right before the accident. With the help of her trombone-playing, defiantly uncool older sister and a guy at school recovering from his own recent trauma, Lexi learns she’s much more than just a pretty face.

Guys…. it has been over a year since a book has been so enthralling that I finished it in one day. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that I had to clean my apartment, I would have read this in just one sitting. Natasha Friend did an amazing job of creating a story that is not only inspiring, but also realistic. The characters acted as real teenagers, spoke as real teenagers, and behaved as real teenagers. There was jealousy, backstabbing, underage drinking and hookups. But at the core, was a group of teenagers that learn to be better people, appreciate what they have, and become just a bit stronger.

The story started so incredibly shallow (on purpose), and I was almost tempted to roll my eyes at it. Then, and I wasn’t expecting it, the story turned into something else. The main character is gorgeous, rich, popular, and then because of a twisted turn of events she’s “disfigured” in an accident, and she has to come to terms to what life is like when she can’t rely on just her looks. What I loved about the story was that at first the MC was so one-dimensional, but she soon stopped wallowing over the loss of her perfect face and she got strong. She realized that her friends weren’t really her friends, she stopped playing perfect daughter to her mother. She went from being self-centered, oblivious and naive to being a strong, independent girl.

In the spirit of no spoilers, I will just say that through the entire book I had some sort of emotion toward what was happening. I was proud of Lexi, I was mad at her at times and I was surprised by her. I felt real things toward each character, and at the end I was even tearing up a bit. AND THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. I am a huge fan of character development, and the amount of it from almost every character was phenomenal. File this one under girl power, because it showed that despite any outside influences, and even our own catty tendencies, we will fight for each other when we need to.

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If you’re interested in reading my GoodReads updates from this book you can do so here. I must say, they’re quite entertaining. It will tell you exactly what I was thinking on certain pages.

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