Helpful Score: 1
Reviewed by Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen for TeensReadToo.com
A beautiful girl meets a boy with hooks for hands in a modern re-telling of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
I devoured this story. CRAZY BEAUTIFUL is one of those books you want to curl up and read in one sitting. The cover is gorgeous, but I was expecting a more intense story, I think, with older characters. (The characters are 15.) Instead, we get a look at a sweet story of love and friendship between two fractured people.
Lucius experimented with chemicals from school and caused an explosion which cost him his hands. He's chosen hooks and has set himself up to be an outcast at school - which he is, except when it comes to Aurora.
Aurora has recently lost her mother to cancer and now she and her father are starting over in a new town. She's genuinely nice and I really did feel like she was a wonderfully sweet person - she wasn't annoyingly perfect and nice - she was real.
I loved Aurora's relationship with her father - I love seeing strong family dynamics in books and Aurora and her father have a great relationship. This contrasts with Lucius and his parents, who have lost trust in him. Yet, I can't say theirs is a negative family dynamic, as their family is struggling to recover from the accident and it's written so perfectly - you feel their struggle. I really liked the relationship between Lucius and his younger sister, Misty - the scene at the mall is one of my favorite sibling scenes ever!
There's so much in this one - it's a tale of friendship, romance, jealousy, and starting over. It does justice to the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST story and it reads like a lovely fairy tale. It's told in alternating viewpoints with each chapter, and I liked how things from each chapter would bleed over into the next character - both are served orange juice for breakfast, both characters will use the same word. It was very clever and I liked looking for the things that connected them.
I'm most impressed with how author Lauren Baratz-Logsted could manage to say so much without going into great detail. She doesn't need to write long descriptive paragraphs about what's happening. Some chapters are only a few sentences long - but the characters have depth and their relationship is believable.
The only complaint that I have was that I wish it would have been a tad longer - the ending felt a little too rushed. Overall, though, CRAZY BEAUTIFUL is definitely one to look for.
Side note - As a librarian, I really loved how Aurora's dad was a librarian and Aurora was a book lover. It's always good to see librarians get a shout out in books. For some reason, he reminded me of Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which made me smile as I was reading it. Gotta love librarians!
A beautiful girl meets a boy with hooks for hands in a modern re-telling of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
I devoured this story. CRAZY BEAUTIFUL is one of those books you want to curl up and read in one sitting. The cover is gorgeous, but I was expecting a more intense story, I think, with older characters. (The characters are 15.) Instead, we get a look at a sweet story of love and friendship between two fractured people.
Lucius experimented with chemicals from school and caused an explosion which cost him his hands. He's chosen hooks and has set himself up to be an outcast at school - which he is, except when it comes to Aurora.
Aurora has recently lost her mother to cancer and now she and her father are starting over in a new town. She's genuinely nice and I really did feel like she was a wonderfully sweet person - she wasn't annoyingly perfect and nice - she was real.
I loved Aurora's relationship with her father - I love seeing strong family dynamics in books and Aurora and her father have a great relationship. This contrasts with Lucius and his parents, who have lost trust in him. Yet, I can't say theirs is a negative family dynamic, as their family is struggling to recover from the accident and it's written so perfectly - you feel their struggle. I really liked the relationship between Lucius and his younger sister, Misty - the scene at the mall is one of my favorite sibling scenes ever!
There's so much in this one - it's a tale of friendship, romance, jealousy, and starting over. It does justice to the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST story and it reads like a lovely fairy tale. It's told in alternating viewpoints with each chapter, and I liked how things from each chapter would bleed over into the next character - both are served orange juice for breakfast, both characters will use the same word. It was very clever and I liked looking for the things that connected them.
I'm most impressed with how author Lauren Baratz-Logsted could manage to say so much without going into great detail. She doesn't need to write long descriptive paragraphs about what's happening. Some chapters are only a few sentences long - but the characters have depth and their relationship is believable.
The only complaint that I have was that I wish it would have been a tad longer - the ending felt a little too rushed. Overall, though, CRAZY BEAUTIFUL is definitely one to look for.
Side note - As a librarian, I really loved how Aurora's dad was a librarian and Aurora was a book lover. It's always good to see librarians get a shout out in books. For some reason, he reminded me of Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which made me smile as I was reading it. Gotta love librarians!
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