BEAUTIFUL UGLY
ALICE FEENEY
****
Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.
Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.
A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.
Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.
MY REVIEW
****
I have been seeing a lot of buzz online about Beautiful Ugly, and with that beautiful cover with the split front and an intriguing blurb, I was excited to pick it up as one of my first reads for 2025.
When author Grady’s wife disappears without a trace, he is left bereft and unable to write. When his publishing agent offers him a trip away to a writing cabin on a very remote Scottish island with a population of 25 people, he jumps at the chance. But is everything on the island as it seems?
Beautiful Ugly is a book which keeps a lot of its cards close to its chest at all times. It works hard to keep the reader gripped but also off balance until right at the final moment. I only guessed part of the twist right before it was revealed, and I did not see the rest of it coming at all! I loved how the island was portrayed - the bad weather, the creepy cabin with the appearing notes, the odd inhabitants all came together to make for an atmospheric read.
Grady is an odd main character, you get a little feel of the unreliable narrator at times - because he is an alcoholic and has trouble sleeping, he often sees things which cannot be true. You do genuinely empathise with him though and you want him to find out what is going on. I also loved his faithful sidekick Columbo the dog, who is present throughout.
The ending is something that I think will truly divide people – it’s certainly a big twist and it makes an impact, but I think it does so at a cost of the narrative and plot development. I was left with a lot of unanswered questions, and it creates quite a lot of plot holes. The last chunk of the book also relied a little too heavily on ‘tell not show’ - where everything is explained via a one-person monologue which I personally don’t like as a narrative technique. This pulled the read down from 5 stars to 4 stars for me, sadly.
Overall, Beautiful Ugly is a gripping read but that ending will certainly divide readers – although it’s a brilliant twist, it sacrifices the plot in its attempt to be shocking. Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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