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About The Book

"Beautiful is stark, disquieting, and, quite simply, riveting." --Ellen Hopkins, bestselling author of Crank

When Cassie moves from the tiny town where she has always lived to a suburb of Seattle, she is determined to leave her boring, good-girl existence behind. This is Cassie's chance to stop being invisible and start being the kind of girl who's worth noticing.

Stepping into her new identity turns out to be easier than Cassie could have ever imagined...one moment, one choice, changes everything.

Cassie's new existence both thrills and terrifies her. Swept into a world of illicit parties and social land mines, she sheds her virginity, embraces the numbness she feels from the drugs, and floats through it all, knowing that she is now called beautiful. She ignores the dangers of her fast-paced life...but she can't sidestep the secrets and the cruelty.

Cassie is trapped in a swift downward spiral tinged with violence and abuse, and no one--not even the one person she thought she could trust--can help her now.

About The Author

Brian Relph

Amy Reed is the author of the contemporary young adult novels BeautifulCleanCrazyOver YouDamagedInvincibleUnforgivable, The Nowhere Girls, and The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World. She is also the editor of Our Stories, Our Voices. She is a feminist, mother, and quadruple Virgo who enjoys running, making lists, and wandering around the mountains of western North Carolina where she lives. You can find her online at AmyReedFiction.com.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (October 6, 2009)
  • Length: 240 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781416985303
  • Grades: 9 and up
  • Ages: 14 - 99
  • Lexile ® HL800 The Lexile reading levels have been certified by the Lexile developer, MetaMetrics®

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Raves and Reviews

"[Beautiful] is essentially a new-millenium Go Ask Alice with a similar blend of cautionary horror story and weirdly fascinated detail . . . . Chilling narration . . . . There's boldness in the book's willingness to make Cassie unsympathetic at times . . . . Train-wreck fascination galore . . . . It'll probably be passed around enthusiastically."
--The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November 2009.

"The gift in this book [Beautiful] is Reed's ability to find the perfect words and use them in ways for which the reader is not ready. The writing is lonely, haunting, sensuous, and oddly beautiful."
--VOYA, August 2010

Awards and Honors

  • ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers

Resources and Downloads

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More books from this author: Amy Reed