Beautiful Girl by Fleur Philips shows the not-so-glamorous side of Hollywood, and how sometimes you need to look within to find true beauty. Rating: 2.5/5

*This is book #17/35 for my 2015 book challenge. You can take a look at the reading challenge here.

Seventeen-year-old Melanie Kennicut is beautiful. Her entire life revolves around this beauty because her overly controlling mother has been dragging her to casting calls and auditions since she was four years old. According to Joanne Kennicut, Melanie was born to follow in her footsteps.

But a freak car accident leaves Melanie with facial lacerations that will require plastic surgery. For the first time in her life, she has a chance to live like a normal teenager–at least for a little while–away from the photo shoots and movie sets that have dominated her entire existence.

Joanne decides to hide her daughter in Montana for the remainder of the summer. Then Melanie meets Sam, a Native American boy hired by the home’s owner to tend to the property. What transpires over a mere 36 hours after Sam and Melanie meet changes both of their lives in ways they never thought possible.

This summary has been edited to be more concise. Read More.

I am really disappointed with Beautiful Girl. I could tell that Fleur Philips is a wonderful writer, but I feel like this book was not her best work. Perhaps it was because it was so short – less than 200 pages. Or perhaps it was done on purpose. Regardless, this book takes a lot of very serious issues (kidnapping, alcoholism, death via murder/suicide, etc.) and handles it all a bit…. casually. It was like this really great story was just rushed through quickly to try and send it to press. And that’s what bothers me the most.

I mean, look at the summary. ONLY 36 HOURS. How can I support a relationship that “just feels right” after 36 hours? Why should I care what happens what to characters when I’m not given enough time to get to know them? The entire first half of the book was so shallow, and I had so many issues with it. Then the second half of the book was amazing. There was suspense, character development, realistic situations with realistic dialogue and realistic reactions. That’s how I know that this could have been so much better. Clearly she isn’t one of those authors with an idea and nothing to back it up. This easily could have been a 250-350 page book with some more backstory, or at least some more days of getting to know each other so their love would be believable. It just wasn’t, unfortunately. It’s one thing when a book is poorly executed and the writing is also bad. It’s a whole other level of disappointment when the writing is so good.

If you’re interested, make sure you buy Beautiful Girl on Amazon!

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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.

PLEASE NOTE: I received a free copy of this book from Booksparks in exchange for an honest review. All opinions held within this review are my own thoughts and feelings and do not reflect upon anyone else.

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