Just Closed... [This Beautiful Life]

This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Overall this book was a decent read, but probably not something I would recommend to another. It shows how a wealthy family living in New York deals with the turn of events when teenage son, Jake, receives a sexually explicit video from a younger girl, which he then passes on to his friends. The author did a good job at picking an event that is probably more prevalent in this technological and fast paced world in which we live, especially with children who are rushing to "grow up" before they are actually grown up at all. It showed the fragilities of a family, even a well to do one, during a difficult time. The idea was overall good, I just didn't like the way she organized things. It switched from past to present tense too much and at times it seemed disjointed and hard to follow. The author also didn't flesh out some of the events that seemed like they should have been, while she focused extensively on things that probably didn't need that much attention.



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