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Book Review of Crazy Beautiful

Crazy Beautiful
jai avatar reviewed on + 310 more book reviews


At 197 pages (at least that was the length of my ebook), this was a short read that I read in a couple of hours. The narrative goes back and forth between Lucius and Aurora's points of view, but they are very short passages, sometimes just one sentence. There's a sort of poetic quality to the writing, as if sentences are used sparingly for maximum dramatic effect.

This is a Beauty and the Beast tale, but there's a lot more going on than this (although it's one of my favorite tropes). The way it was written, it conveyed high school and family in a believable way. Lucius is an outsider but he didn't strike me as a real bad boy, despite what he'd done (and this book's cover). His attitude was more of an intelligent guy who is marginalized by others, but I liked how Aurora trusted her own judgment in him. There's the idea of starting over, which both Aurora and Lucius have to do, going with or against the crowd, rumors, the consequences of your actions and a really sweet romance. And had a couple of laughs at Lucius's sarcastic sense of humor, especially when he goes shopping with his younger sister and is forced to discover how pitiful his fashion sense is.

When I look at other reviews for this book I see people wanting more to the story, wanted to see more of what happened after it ended, but I didn't have so much of that problem just because I knew that the book was short, and I guess I had that in the back of my mind. I think I ended liking it better than them. The only minor complaint I'd have is wanting to know a bit more about what Lucius was up to when he blew up his hands. It takes a while before we get there and when we do, his reasons behind it weren't delved into and I wish they were, but maybe this book didn't want to focus on the past as much as focus on moving forward.