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books_and_planners's review
4.0
I liked this book! Disappointed by the ending, but decided to give it 4 stars based on the bulk of the novel. I was skeptical because of the lower rating on goodreads.
I hated Catherine. I think she was intentionally written to be disliked. It annoyed me how careless with money she was & how clueless she was about the real world. William gave me creepy vibes from the beginning.
It was slightly predictable. I had my lightbulb moment on page 173 & referred back to earlier in the novel to confirm my suspicion. I guess I was hoping for more scandalous. Or that the characters reacted differently. Because in the end they seemed to just brush it off & everything worked out perfectly. Just an odd ending to me.
I hated Catherine. I think she was intentionally written to be disliked. It annoyed me how careless with money she was & how clueless she was about the real world. William gave me creepy vibes from the beginning.
It was slightly predictable. I had my lightbulb moment on page 173 & referred back to earlier in the novel to confirm my suspicion. I guess I was hoping for more scandalous. Or that the characters reacted differently. Because in the end they seemed to just brush it off & everything worked out perfectly. Just an odd ending to me.
alisarae's review
When I got this book from the library, I was under the impression it was a thriller. This is despite the cover not looking like a thriller cover in the least, although the title is almost a thriller title. It was just lacking the word "girl" or woman" and a preposition like "The Girl on the Could Have Been Beautiful Train" or "The Woman in the Beautiful Window." At 80% through the book, I was still not convinced that this book was not a thriller. This is because the main character is a rich asshat with a perfect fiancé who refuses to talk about his past (this is a thriller recipe for domestic disaster) and the language of the book is thriller language. She lives in a pure white house with a blood red door. None of her friends or family likes her perfect fiancé. He makes kids nervous and cry-y. Her mom with Alzheimer's freezes up when the fiancé is around. These kinds of clues are dropped all the time but make no mistake, this is NOT A THRILLER. There are some twisted weird family secrets but it has a happy ending sooo...... Anyways, it was like when you are promised ice cream from Dairy Queen and then you are given a popsicle. This is not what was promised.
jennieamber's review
2.0
I'm giving this book only two stars because I did a ton of skipping over just fluff, the book was too long. It had a lot of padding that it didn't need, or either the plot wasn't well thought out. I'm not sure which.
There were some jaw dropping twists that I enjoyed but it took so long to get to them that it ended up being boring.
There were some jaw dropping twists that I enjoyed but it took so long to get to them that it ended up being boring.
dfwsusie's review
4.0
3.75 Stars.
Call it the GoneGirlsOnATrain effect. As of late, it has been wildly popular to present female characters that are detestable, sociopathic or evil. When I started "We Could Be Beautiful" I thought I would hate the main character, Catherine, because it would be a rehash of "Luckiest Girl Alive", a book I wanted to burn I disliked the female protagonist so much. I didn't end up feeling that way at all here.
This is by no means a perfect book, and it is not a thriller as often described. But I found that in spite of that I enjoyed it and whipped through in two days. If it was meant to be more thrilling or mysterious, I knew from a 1/4 of the way through where it was going. But I found myself growing to empathize with this character. She didn't atrophy, she grew...but not too much that it wasn't believable.
Call it the GoneGirlsOnATrain effect. As of late, it has been wildly popular to present female characters that are detestable, sociopathic or evil. When I started "We Could Be Beautiful" I thought I would hate the main character, Catherine, because it would be a rehash of "Luckiest Girl Alive", a book I wanted to burn I disliked the female protagonist so much. I didn't end up feeling that way at all here.
This is by no means a perfect book, and it is not a thriller as often described. But I found that in spite of that I enjoyed it and whipped through in two days. If it was meant to be more thrilling or mysterious, I knew from a 1/4 of the way through where it was going. But I found myself growing to empathize with this character. She didn't atrophy, she grew...but not too much that it wasn't believable.
theknitterwithabook's review
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
DNF at 39%
Entitled 43 years old rich white woman with no spine.
Catherine, le main character, loves to tell you she's got it all, she has the perfect life and the perfect ass. Except she doesn't yet have the husband and the kid. She lives in an 8 million $ condo in New-York, she's receiving 80k$ every month (you read that correctly!), she met a man one month ago and he's already asked her to marry him. She's compliant and does everything to please him including changing her behavior, becoing a Christian and then r@p&.
Then, she learns that she will stop receiving the 80K$ trust fund every month and realizes she's broke (her words! how can you be broke when you've been receiving 80k$ a month for years?). But there's a clause in her father's will : if she gets married and have children, she'll receive 10 million per child. She proceeds to tell us that she's received too many ab0rt10n$ to conceive (hello stereotype!). That's when I decided to DNF...
The character is too entitled, the story doesn't get to the point either. It's supposed to be a thriller and there's supposed to be a catch about the fiancé. Instead, we have a slow, slow, slow book with a very annoying character. I didn't like the writing style either. I'm a "show me, don't tell me" type of reader. Here, the author was describing what was doing or saying a character and then had the character repeat that word for word.
We get that the MC lives a very luscious life but there's no suspense in what's supposed to be a thriller. The mother with dementia will sometimes gasp or become angry when the fiancé's name is pronounced but that's pretty much it. It goes back to telling us how perfect Catherine's life is and how she wants to please her future husband. I was very curious to learn who's William and what happened in his childhood but nothing to this point. Just a controlling man.
Entitled 43 years old rich white woman with no spine.
Catherine, le main character, loves to tell you she's got it all, she has the perfect life and the perfect ass. Except she doesn't yet have the husband and the kid. She lives in an 8 million $ condo in New-York, she's receiving 80k$ every month (you read that correctly!), she met a man one month ago and he's already asked her to marry him. She's compliant and does everything to please him including changing her behavior, becoing a Christian and then r@p&.
Then, she learns that she will stop receiving the 80K$ trust fund every month and realizes she's broke (her words! how can you be broke when you've been receiving 80k$ a month for years?). But there's a clause in her father's will : if she gets married and have children, she'll receive 10 million per child. She proceeds to tell us that she's received too many ab0rt10n$ to conceive (hello stereotype!). That's when I decided to DNF...
The character is too entitled, the story doesn't get to the point either. It's supposed to be a thriller and there's supposed to be a catch about the fiancé. Instead, we have a slow, slow, slow book with a very annoying character. I didn't like the writing style either. I'm a "show me, don't tell me" type of reader. Here, the author was describing what was doing or saying a character and then had the character repeat that word for word.
We get that the MC lives a very luscious life but there's no suspense in what's supposed to be a thriller. The mother with dementia will sometimes gasp or become angry when the fiancé's name is pronounced but that's pretty much it. It goes back to telling us how perfect Catherine's life is and how she wants to please her future husband. I was very curious to learn who's William and what happened in his childhood but nothing to this point. Just a controlling man.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Dementia
Moderate: Rape
Minor: Abortion
laurenpedersen's review
3.0
Slightly predictable. Made me wonder if every family has secrets. And I felt uncomfortable with the spoiled women and their ridiculous spending.
sheila_p's review
3.0
With the right casting, the movie (assuming there could one day be a movie) will be better than the book. The possibilities for humor, vulnerability, and depth within the characters are there, just underdeveloped. The plot is predictable, but engrossing enough that it is a quick enjoyable enough read.
k8iedid's review
2.0
This is a good read for those of us who don't like the murdery psychological thrillers, but who like yelling at an insufferable privileged protagonist. Come on girl. Come ON GIRL.
The book is written as a 1st-person POV reflection "I remember...", which often took me out of the scene being described and made me wonder at what point, and why, the narrator was telling the story.
The book is written as a 1st-person POV reflection "I remember...", which often took me out of the scene being described and made me wonder at what point, and why, the narrator was telling the story.
pikasqueaks's review
there was something weirdly endearing about how absolutely awful and truly annoying catherine west was. i think that while i'm no stranger to the vapid and thoughtless characters in these types of books, for once this character was fully formed. the author took a lot of care in crafting just how opinionated catherine is about everything -- from how pets belong outside, the proper way to sit in a restaurant, and her awareness of how shitty she is for constantly ordering food and not eating it after it's been served to her.
the plot itself was boring and forgettable, you could see the end result from the start, but catherine west was a fun character to hang out with for the duration.
the plot itself was boring and forgettable, you could see the end result from the start, but catherine west was a fun character to hang out with for the duration.