A review by zzzazzzy
A Beautiful Crime by Christopher Bollen

1.0

This book is trash. My entire book club hated it. It is slow, and the characters and plot never get fleshed out or go anywhere. The book is over 300 pages and about 200 of that is filler. There were arcs that never paid off and motivations that didn't make sense. Only one character is mildly likeable, and he gets some of the least attention. Several people described it as straight-gazing despite the author being gay. The one Black character is obviously written by a white man, which isn't always bad but here it is. This book feels like it was written back in earlier 2000s in terms of representation. The relationships make no sense, and TW: there is a completely unnecessary rape scene. In summary, don't bother with this book. It deserves no hype, and the hype it has gotten is from its own author who works for vanity fair who is promoting the book.