Beautiful Bad

“The perfect marriage leads to the perfect crime.”

First of all, who the hell came up with that tagline? It's a good tagline, don't get me wrong, but it has nothing to do with the book in question. Did this person read the same book I did? “The perfect marriage?” If anyone has an argument for why Maddie's and Ian's relationship could be viewed as anything but toxic, I'd love to hear it. And there has to be more to your stance than “Well, he's hot!”

Moving on, I don't read much in the way of thrillers, but I'm trying to branch out some here. For me, Beautiful Bad was a mixed bag, full of surprises I didn't expect from the author, and some elements I grudgingly trudged through. Briefly, here are my thoughts:

-I liked that Beautiful Bad dealt with questions of psychology. I wasn't 100% convinced with the psychological ailments shown in the story, but they added to the story.

-Though it may have been a bit hard to follow at times, the shifts in POV and time allowed for the story to unfold at just the right speed.

-It kept me guessing. I thought I'd had it all figured out a couple times—my ideas were far more convoluted than the actual solution (not sure if that's a good thing or not)—but the conclusion surprised me.

-Most surprising to me (being a lit snob and all) was that some of the writing was quite good. This was particularly true when Ward was pushed invoke emotion. My own flaw, for sure, but I wasn't expecting this from a thriller.

-I had a very difficult time accepting these characters and their relationships. I didn't buy any of it. There just wasn't any personal or relational development that gave me a firm impression of who or why. Ian and Maddie, Maddie and Jo—what do they all see in one another? My biggest critique would be that I wish this had been developed more in place of all the details surrounding where everyone ate.

-Because I didn't have a firm grasp on the characters, I also found the motivation for the violence at the center of the story was difficult to accept.

Despite my mixed feelings, I'm glad I gave this novel a chance. I don't feel the characters were given proper development, but I see a lot of potential in the writing; and it certainly gives me a psychological thriller I can recommend without much trepidation.