Description
Scarlett was gifted with beauty. But beauty can be taken in a day, in a single moment, by one car fire. Now permanently scarred, Scarlett has become a smudge in her perfect world. She can see only one acceptable solution: to escape the modern world for Matilda Mountain, which is desolate, isolated, forlorn. Perfect.
But mountains are not always as lonely as they appear. And unexpected friendships can be found in the wilderness. Friendships that challenge her ideas about perfection and her place in the world. Can Scarlett break free from the confines of her beauty-obsessed culture to discover who she is beyond the layers of her skin?
Review
This is an incredible journey of self-discovery and recovery after a horrific car accident.
Fourteen-year-old Scarlett was a perfect ballerina. As her Gran would say she was so pretty - in a world where pretty is so important for girls.
Now fifteen months on and having just turned sixteen, Scarlett knows that with terrible scarring from burns to her face and upper torso, she can never be pretty again.
But then she convinces her Dad to take her away to remote Matilda Mountain for a couple of weeks to get away from people. There she meets home schooled Eamon and his extended family, who live in a community of caravans. Slowly he convinces Scarlett that beauty can be found in so many things, and that being beautiful is so much more than skin deep.
This is a wonderful story about the things we truly value in ourselves, and in society. Things like honesty, accepting people as they are and trying always to do well for yourself and others, beauty standards, and societal expectations.
I really loved this story, and it is a great read for all teens.
Reviewed by Rob
