North of Beautiful book review

North of Beautiful

By Justine Chen Headley

Genre: Fiction

My Rating: 4.8 stars!

Summary: "Terra's body is very nearly perfect, except for the port-wine birthmark on her left cheek, which several surgeries have failed to remove. It is the teen's final semester of high school and she looks forward to college where she can study art and escape from her bullying, verbally abusive father. Over the Christmas holidays, Terra and her mother get into a car accident and meet Jacob, a Goth Chinese boy with a cleft lip, and his adoptive mother. The women immediately strike up a supportive friendship, while Terra and Jacob grow close. When Terra's brother, who lives in Shanghai, sends her and her mother tickets to visit, and Jacob's mother wants to try to track down Jacob's birth mother, they decide to travel together. But what about Erik, Terra's enamored but slightly clueless boyfriend?"

Taken from Amazon.com

I loved this book!  It's such a beautiful story about beauty.  All the characters in this book have such depth and flaws and its wonderful and refreshing to see that.  And what's even more wonderful and refreshing is to see the characters overcome those obstacles and flaws.

I really felt for Terra.  It's hard enough to try to fit in at school, but to have a noticeable "flaw" effects her self-esteem.  And a father who continually reminds her of it, calling her "pretty ugly".  She compensates by ensuring she has the perfect body, and sticking with Erik, who although he doesn't really get her, she feels he's the best she's gonna get with her 'flaws'.

The book is filled with map terms, which at first bothered me, but they make a lot of sense as the story progresses.  And Terra is an artist--her art form, collage, works in beautifully into the storyline.

One thing I really liked about this book is that the mother is on her journey too.  In YA books, the main character is always on a journey of self-discovery.  But in this case, the mother grows and develops and comes out of her shell that her verbally abusive husband put her into.  It was wonderful to see both mother and daughter grow in self-confidence as the story unfolded.

And I don't cry very often, but chapter 29 left a little lump in my throat.  It was as beautiful as both mother and daughter come to realize they are.  

I'm not saying this book is perfect.  It started out kind of slow, but once it picked up it had me hooked.  And the author seems to repeat ideas over and over.  After a while, I was like, "yeah, I got the idea.  Move on."  I think the story could have been told in about 100 less pages and not lost any of its meaning.  And after I while I thought "Ok, seriously, why can't you stand up to your dad/husband already?!?  Sure, he's verbally abusive, but jeez louise, you let him control everything, including how you feel about yourself!"  I believe all people lose their breaking point, and no matter how fearful they are of the abusing person they will eventually take a stand.  I kept waiting for it to happen.

But still, I loved this book.  I now want to read other books by this author.  It was a beautiful story, beautifully written, about beauty.  Highly recommended.