NoB was a birthday present from one of my best book buddies, @SarahO97 - she didn't tell me anything about it, but Sarah has great taste in books. I can definitely say that I wouldn't have picked up NoB if it hadn't been for Sarah....but boy, am I glad I did.When I first started North of Beautiful, I expected it to be fairly light-hearted, with lots of self-discovery and a cute romance with some self-esteem stuff. Not so. This book surprised me with its depth and its honesty. But be warned: this...

While I'm sure Justina Chen's *North of Beautiful* likely gets better as the story progresses, the opening was unfortunately too dull for me to want to spend any more time finding out. This book review reflects my initial impression.

I often steer clear of realistic YA fiction precisely because of titles like Justina Chen's *North of Beautiful*: well-meaning, angsty 'Books with Messages' whose earnest agendas are perfectly clear to anyone who skims the jacket. It's ironic that a novel so intent on urging readers to look past the physical 'mark' on Terra's face struggles so much to focus on anything *but* that very mark. Despite being a reasonably substantial novel, somehow the abusive dad, the meek mother, the endless refere...

Once upon a time, I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning while sitting under the covers in a darkened air force base hotel, watching a PBS Nova special about the magnetic poles. (Hold on while I push up my nerd glasses.) The people I was with were all asleep but I was watching it, flabbergasted, and wanting to wake them up—because I never knew, until that moment, that what we know as magnetic north and south have changed several times in the history of Earth. Can you imagine? Obviously, i...

TBR Pile Reduction Challenge #3 - Kristy North of Beautiful and I were off to a rather rocky start. After about 50 pages in, I was contemplating giving up on it because what I had read so far had either bored me or made me quite uncomfortable. Terra’s family is more than shattered. Her father is a real bully, and all those mean and hurtful things he said to either Terra or her mother hurt me so much that I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to stick with the story or not. I guess the fact that I was...

"North of Beautiful" is about Terra Cooper, the blonde bombshell with a killer body and a perfect boyfriend whose life would be unblemished if it weren't for the port-wine stain covering the entire left side of her face. There's a saying that goes, "Humans only remember bad deeds, and once a bad deed has been committed, the good will forever be ignored." This holds true for Terra, for when most people think of her, they forget that she works strenuously to keep in shape and that she has promisin...

Terra Cooper is blonde, beautiful, a talented artist, and dating a popular, athletic boy. She has everything going for her, or does she? Well, she has one physical flaw: a port-wine stain birthmark in the shape of Bhutan on her right cheek. Along with her daily exercise regimen, Terra skillfully applies an assortment of cosmetics and moisturizers to conceal the red stain that brings her shame. She lives in a small, boring town in Washington, has a controlling and overly critical father, and an o...

Listen up, everyone! There's a reason why `North of Beautiful` by Justina Chen has so many raving reviews – it is simply gorgeous. When I finished it, I actually sat for a full 30 minutes in the exact same spot, just thinking about the story and everything I took from it. That's how profound its impact was on me. The story itself is like a raw block of wood, full of potential for something truly beautiful. The carpenter – Justina Chen, the author – chips away slowly and deliberately, doing a th...

The first thing people notice about Terra Cooper isn’t her gorgeous blonde hair or stunning figure: it’s the port wine stain that spreads across her cheek, marking her face. Terra is desperate to escape her tiny Washington town and plots to attend a small liberal arts college on the East Coast, but her controlling father dashes her plans. When she meets Jacob, a Goth Chinese boy, after she nearly hits him with her car, things begin to change. Jacob gets her. For the first time in her life, Terra...

“Terra, a sensitive, artistic high school senior born with a facial port-wine stain, struggles with issues of inner and outer beauty with the help of her Goth friend Jacob.I was initially dismayed by the first few chapters of this book because of the intense amount of references to maps and cartography, of which I was not well-versed in, making it feel like I was reading an encyclopedia and in need of constant referencing with a dictionary to find the meaning of certain words. The cartography me...