Manas’s Reviews > Beautyland > Status Update

Adina is loving, caring, thoughtful, eloquent, intelligent and kind. The way Bertino has written her makes her even more precious and she might be one of my favourite protagonists in a book ever.
Bertino’s intricate yet casual prose makes this even better because I’m burning through it faster than I ever expected to.

I understand now why everyone wrote about this book being strangely sad, because of how vividly it captures the thoughts of someone who goes through adolescence while yearning to feel accepted, someone who struggles to fit in and is given the short end of the stick in terms of their future, and is forced to watch the world move on while they're left behind.
It's hauntingly beautiful because of its unique prose.