North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley
Release Date: February 1, 2009
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 384
It's hard not to notice Terra Cooper.
She's tall, blond, and has an enviable body. But with one turn of her cheek, all people notice is her unmistakably "flawed" face. Terra secretly plans to leave her stifling small town in the Northwest and escape to an East Coast college, but gets pushed off-course by her controlling father. When an unexpected collision puts Terra directly in Jacob's path, the handsome but quirky Goth boy immediately challenges her assumptions about herself and her life, and she is forced in yet another direction. With her carefully laid plans disrupted, will Terra be able to find her true path?
This book was fantastic! I’d read Headley’s Girl Overboard, and I wasn’t that big of a fan. I love Headley’s writing the MC in Girl Overboard, just rubbed me the wrong way. But with North of Beautiful everything came together. I just loved this book!
The writing was so perfect, I just enjoyed how the story was told, I could not stop reading this book. The words were addicting. The characters were so well developed. Even Terra’s dad, he was such a remarkable character, of course his character traits were not remarkable, because the guy was the biggest pompous ass, but the fact that I loathed him to the most extreme state that you can loathe someone, must give some sort of kudos to Headley’s characterization. And yet at times, I even felt bad for him... how is that even possible?
It’s a story that I think everyone can relate to. I know personally I related to Terra’s low self-esteem and how it trapped her in a relationship that she knew she shouldn’t be in. My heart ached for her. And art as her escape, just genius!
It was such a powerful book! Ah, I loved it! And it’s such a thought provoking topic. Beauty. You can’t get much more complex, so many times authors get it wrong, but this story totally blew me away.
Another enjoyable aspect was the trip to China that Terra and her mother take. It was eye-opening for me to read about. I never thought that I’d be interested in going to China, until I read this book, and now I’ve already been checking out travel deals online! I never realized how truly sheltered I am.
Overall, just read this book. It’s fantastic. I honestly cannot say enough good things about it.