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.
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Ooo, Luminous Pearl! I like it.
North of Beautiful is AWESOME! Glad you liked it too.
Wow, great review! I’ve had this on my wishlist for awhile. Guess I really need to get around to reading it, especially after all those star-ratings for your categories.
The Luminous Pearl Award! I think you will really enjoy Say the Word since you liked this one. I found a few similarities between them (and not just the cover model!) They both take on so much emotional stuff in a beautiful way.
Nice review! I’ve never seen the Luminous Pearl Award, but I’m liking it, I’m liking it.
Nice choice on The Luminous Pearl Award! I likes! For the book though, I wasn’t a huge fan of it. I agree about her dad, I wanted to knock him out myself.
–Amber
I wasn’t going to read this one, but maybe it was because I didn’t pay too much attention to this book.
It seems really nice, and I love Asia and I like books that talk about it.
I can’t wait to read this! I actually bought this one and just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I loved Girl Overboard so I’m super excited for this one since everyone says how awesome it is!
I look forward to this novel =)
At first glance that oyster looked like a skeleton and I was like “Kristi is giving out fossils?!”
In other news, this book IS fabulous.
Ooh now I’m excited to read this book. my only worry is that I won’t understand it. I’ve read about two paragraphs of the book and I find the English is of a very high standard. Maybe I’ll wait one or two years. XD
But from the reviews I’ve read about it, the book sounds AMAZING! So everyone should totally read it.
I’m really excited to read this now. Thanks for the great review!
I really loved this book. Good review.
Thanks a lot! You always do this to me.
Put up a review of a book I’ve been dying to read which just makes me want to read it even more.
I’m seriously going to go broke when I get around to getting some of the books I want online. I can’t do it at the moment because I need to get a debt card. All I have is an ATM card. T_T
And my mother is no longer letting me use her card to get more books(even though I give her the money in return!) because she thinks I have way too many books.
That’s impossible!
Great review!
By the way, great award! Very creative and very Story Siren-y.:D
Ditto!
I don’t know why but I’m never able to use my Google Account on your comment box.
Oh well! 
It’s a great cover (even tho Evermore’s is almost the same).
Excellent review!
That settles it. I need to read this one. I keep looking at it at work and passing it by, but I can pass it by no longer. It must be mine. Thanks!!