SuitabookMaking pretty
Corey Ann Haydu
- Reading
- If the emotional intensity feels close to home, pause after major choices and discuss what makes a relationship trustworthy.
- Themes
- Beauty and self-worth: Montana lives amid a father's focus on flaws and a culture that prizes beauty; her sister's cosmetic surgery changes how Montana sees their relationship. The treatment appears questioning rather than celebratory: appearance pressure is linked with insecurity and family strain.
- Trust and unequal friendship: Seventeen-year-old Montana becomes closely involved with Karissa, who is twenty-three, bold, vulnerable and sometimes unstable in Montana's eyes. The book leaves its stance open to more than one reading.
- Love and identity: Bernardo becomes a powerful romantic focus, and Montana considers how becoming lost or found in another person affects the rest of her life. The book presents competing or mixed signals about this.
- Worth knowing
- The story contains intense emotions and angst, family disruption through divorce, appearance-focused attitudes, intense romantic feelings, impulsive decisions and an age-unequal friendship whose boundaries may merit attention.