Beautiful Americans
Cover of the book
Four different kids, four different secrets.
“Everyone has secrets of their own but how far would you go to hide yours“. In this book four teenage Americans go to France for a year to study at one of the most exclusive schools in Paris. Alex is a beautiful half-French girl who goes to Paris in search of love. Her father’s never been in her life and she fills that gap by buying all the material things she wants. Zack is a lonely boy from Memphis who, like Alex, is also in search for love, but will his secret complicate his search for true love?
Olivia is an excellent ballerina with a loving family and boyfriend back in San Diego. She goes to Paris in hopes of getting a scholarship to the college of her choice but when her fall from glory drives her into the arms of the wrong guy her world comes crashing down. PJ is a mysterious girl who flees from her town and her secret filled past. When PJ suddenly disappears Zack Alex and Olivia must put their differences aside to help find her. However, as all their secrets are revealed they start realizing it might not have been a good idea to have hidden them in the first place.
Lucy Silag really catches the readers attention right from the beginning. She starts off with the introduction of each character. I really like how every chapters is in a different perspective. The first chapter is in Alex’s point of view, the second is in Olivia’s, the third is in PJ’s then the fourth is in Zack’s and all the chapters alternate like this. This helps the reader get a better inside on how all the characters are feeling and thinking about certain situations. Silag also uses a great amount of description to help describe the city of France and is very accurate about cafes and stores that she mentions in the book.
She keeps you in suspense the whole time. She drops hints every once in a while and just as you think that you’ve figured out the secret it takes yet another turn. One thing I really like was how authentic the story line is. I’ve never read anything like this it. The genre of the book itself is a romantic mystery I would say. The book keeps you guessing till the end and well the end isn’t one that will disappoint. In fact the book leaves you wanting more, wondering and guessing what will happen to our protagonists next. There’s a lot of romance in this book and all though there isn’t one specific antagonist there is a good amount of conflict in the book.
One thing I didn’t like though was the amount of teen content in the book. There isn’t a lot of it but there are of few things that simply didn’t need to be in the book and were completely inappropriate. Then again it is a book about teenagers so some of it is necessary other than that the books is superior. To me one of the more meaningful parts is where PJ starts to reveal some of her secrets to herself and she starts to accept them. “I looked at the map in my book and thought about Annabel. I remembered how we had a world map hanging in our room. We always used to close our eyes and spin around then place our finger on the map. We both always tried for Paris but never got it. I had gotten close a few times but never landed on it. The night that Dave had proposed to her she had waltzed in, closed her eyes, spun around and pointed to a city on the map. ‘I got it!’ she exclaimed Then a couple months later she left on the day of her wedding. A couple more months after that here I sit in Paris. The place we both wanted to be.”
This passage really makes you feel like PJ’s starting to open up more to herself. I also really like when Alex starts to realize that maybe material things cant fill the gap that her father left behind. “Since when did my mom care about the amount of money I spent? It was what we always did. I never really had quality family time and family meals instead my father would send home a hefty child support check every month and my mom would use it to pay for my shopping expenses. It’s always been that way. Yet suddenly it wasn’t enough.”
We start to see some if these changes in the characters throughout the book but in the end who gains the most and who loses the most. How does Alex really feel about her dad never being there fir her? Will Zack ever find true love? How will Olivia recover from this downfall and how will it effect her family back home? Most importantly what happens to PJ and what secret is she hiding? You’ll simply have to read and find out.
