North of Beautiful by Justina Chen

 

NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL has been on my to-read list for a while but I've never picked it up until now. God, I wish I'd read it when I was a teen. Where was the soft goth boy of my dreams then, I ask you?

Terra is a beautiful teenage girl with a port-wine birthmark on her face. She feels incredibly insecure about it and is always going to treatments for it, which her mother sneaks her to around her disapproving dad, who begrudges the extra expenses. She also lives in a dysfunctional home: her father is emotionally abusive, and both of her brothers have withdrawn (emotionally and/or geographically). Her mother, when she isn't treating Terra's face like a passion project, turns to food as comfort, emotionally eating to compensate for the abuse.

When Terra meets Jacob after an unpleasant circumstance, they end up becoming friends. And then-- after an unexpected trip to China-- more than friends. In China, Terra is finally free from her dad and the expectations of the society that she identifies with. Culture shock ends up being the impetus that frees her from fear and its constraints.

So this was really, really well done. There are so many things this book does that make it way ahead of its time and if you ask me, it desperately needs a rerelease. First, it's great to see a heroine with a birthmark and how the author shows the bullying and negative attention she gets from that (even from friends and family). I saw some people saying that the reactions she got seemed overboard; they aren't. Kids are cruel. I also liked how she was dating a guy who wasn't the best for her (but wasn't abusive) and didn't break up with him, even when she started exploring things with Jacob. I saw reviews shaming her for this, too, but c'mon. She's a teen. Teens do shit like that. Dating isn't a marriage. Lots of kids play fast and loose with relationships. This actually made it feel way more realistic.

I think the best part of this book, though, was the China trip. I learned so much about how adoption works in China, some of the places of interest, and even a little bit about the culture. I also loved how the love interest was a Chinese American who did not speak Chinese and experienced this kind of weird dissociation from being perceived as "other" in the U.S. by some people but also "other" in China by others since he couldn't speak the language and didn't look local. This isn't something that ever got discussed much in aughts YA, which is a shame, and it's honestly so great that this book did. Also, the heroine doesn't fetishize Jacob at all. She acts as an ally for him when she needs to be and likes him for who he is, goth eyeshadow and all. Their friends to lovers relationship was quite convincing.

So overall, NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL ended up being really fun. The pacing was a little uneven at times because the book was so long, but I enjoyed the journey. It gave me nostalgia for books like Sarah Dessen and Deb Caletti wrote: edgy YA with flawed and compelling protagonists who let you into their lives one wistful slice at a time. I own another book by this author and I will be bumping it up the priority list after reading and loving this one so much. Definitely read this if you love realistic YA.

4 to 4.5 out of 5 stars