A review by rachels_booknook
A Beautiful Rival by Gill Paul

5.0

Advanced Book Review! Thank you @netgalley and @avonbooksuk for sending me this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. 

I loved this book. I had read Renée Rosen’s Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl, about Estée Lauder, earlier this year, which included a little but about the rivalry between Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein. When I saw A Beautiful Rival was about these two beauty industry titans, I knew I wanted to learn more. 

Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein were “two self-made businesswomen who became bitter rivals in the early twentieth century.” I love how Gill Paul tells their stories through their rivalry with each other, spanning decades, and examines how their lives differed and paralleled. When I read historical fiction, I always wonder which details are true and I am so appreciative that Gill Paul not only includes an author’s note, but even more factual details on her website. 

I identified with both women in that Elizabeth Arden was Canadian and Helena Rubinstein was Jewish. In fact, Gill Paul states that she knew antisemtism needed to be a theme of this book because not only was Helena Rubinstein breaking barriers as woman in business, but as a Jewish women specifically. 

I found it interesting how often both women travelled. Travel was not easy at that time and it took days. They must have been gone for long periods of time, making it more difficult to have a family, as we saw in Helena’s relationship with her sons and the fact that Elizabeth never had children. Elizabeth actually seemed quite childish herself. 

I also loved seeing how the author imagined they would have reacted to other actual people, such as Eleanor Roosevelt. And I loved Helena and her husband sending cables back and forth, just like today’s texting.