What would you sacrifice to be pretty? Friends, your job…your life? That’s the decision that three twenty-somethings have to make in this novel.
I fell for the cover, totally. So, like most of the characters in this book I am superficial and rather focused on first impressions.
The premise behind this book was fascinating. Three friends in their early twenties, suffering the usual angst and body issues, are given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. An old friend passes on something called Pretty. Curiosity gets the better of them and they take it. After some Inbetweeners-style bathroom reaction to it, the girls learn it has changed them.
Glossy, beautiful and like Photoshopped versions of themselves, the three girls get to play. They see just how good life can be for the beautiful people…but their angst and issues remain, and life on the other side isn’t actually much greener.
This reminded me a little of Limitless, but focusing on three characters meant things were always rather superficial. The scenarios the girls get into were, possibly, meant to be humorous but I found them rather depressing. If only they’d had the chance to do something better.
Ultimately, the girls come to realise there’s positives to who they really are. We leave the book none the wiser about what the drug was, how it worked or whether others were on it. Do we need to know? Probably not, but the message that beauty is only skin deep and we should learn to love who we are is rather obvious.
Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this, but I feel it could have been so much better.