The Beauty that Remains--"No one ever talks about the living who have unfinished business with the dead. How do they ever find peace again?"

Title: The Beauty that Remains

Author: Ashley Woodfolk


What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer): Logan's ex-boyfriend, Bram, died in a mysterious "suicide."  Shay's twin sister, Sasha, died of leukemia. Autumn's best friend, Tavia, died in a car accident on the way to a party that Autumn (and Tavia's brother, Dante) were supposed to attend. Logan obsessively watches Youtube videos of Bram; Shay struggles to keep up Sasha's music blog; Autumn writes messages to Tavia's email account.  All these grieving teenagers have some connection to the defunct band, Unraveling Lovely.


What I think: I thought I had read some sad, yet moving, books this year, but this one was . . . WOW.  I originally picked it up because it had a blurb from Angie Thomas, the author of The Hate U Give, on the cover: "Be prepared to be broken, be prepared to feel whole again." Since The Hate U Give is one of the best books I've ever read (and I've read LOTS of books), I picked up The Beauty that Remains. And again, wow.

This book is incredible. I read the whole thing in one sitting, even though I kept crying and had to stop periodically to wipe off my glasses and blow my nose (much to the amusement of my son, who at first was concerned that I was crying, but then made fun of me for it). The ending is hopeful and you know that the characters are on their way to healing, but everything is just so devastatingly sad.

Writing teachers often emphasize show, not tell to aspiring writers.  This is a difficult concept to explain.  I thought Beautiful Music for Ugly Children needed more showing instead of telling. On the other hand, in this book, Woodfolk does an excellent job in of showing readers the beauty that remains as people struggle through through grief.

Logan's character arc is interesting because he has to deal with unresolved feelings about Bram that he will now obviously never be able to talk to him about.  Also, he finds out secrets about Bram and realizes that he did not know his former boyfriend as well as he thought he did.  Logan turns to drinking alcohol to deal with his grief a bit too much (especially for a seventeen-year-old), and one reviewer thinks that more should have been done to condemn those actions in the book.

However, I am going to respectfully disagree with the reviewer because I am a big fan of showing, not telling: we readers are shown all the problems that Logan has exacerbated by his drinking. Logan also realizes it; no one needs to tell him.

Plus, his counselor does address it, maybe not as explicitly or directly as in other books, but it is addressed. Grief therapy group is mentioned for one of the characters as well as a parent support group for another, but I wish that counseling and talk support had been emphasized more.  The one character who kept trying to talk about one of the deceased girls is [spoiler deleted], and although that's (kind of) resolved at the end . . . therapy.  These people need it.

However, it is shown that these people need therapy--why tell it as well? 😉

I kept getting Shay and Autumn's stories and points-of-view confused, even though they were pretty different.  I would have liked more backstory about Shay's mom and Rohan, Sasha's boyfriend.

Dante and Autumn begin dating, and I have to say that I agree with the reservations expressed by even Autumn herself about their new relationship. Yes, they liked each other before Tavia's death, but jumping into a serious relationship while in the depths of such grief (and Dante and Autumn made me cry so much) doesn't seem very wise.

The characters are racially and sexually diverse: Shay and Sasha and Rohan are African-American; Dante and Tavia, as well as Bram's ex-girlfriend Yara, are Latinx; Autumn is an adopted Korean-American; Bram was bisexual; and Logan and his friends Aden and Nico are gay.  We are shown that the grief affects all of them in similar and different ways in spite of their genders, ethnicities, and sexualities.

Loss and death are not easy, comfortable subjects, and the characters do not always handle themselves in mentally and/or physically healthy ways. I cringed sometimes; I wanted to shake them sometimes; I wanted to smack them sometimes; I cried with them many times.


This book is on the 2019 Rainbow Book List.


My final takeaway (in 75 words or fewer): I definitely recommend The Beauty that Remains, in addition to The Hate U Give.  Make sure that if you have unresolved grief that you take care of yourself before reading anything that could trigger upsetting emotions--and both of these books could do that.

In conclusion, I could show you the pile of soggy Kleenexes after reading both books, but I think this is one of the few situations when telling is more appropriate. 😶

  
Memorable quotes/passages from the book:

• "Vanilla has always come from your open bottles of shampoo, your hand lotions, your candles.  Today's no different, except you're not here, and the smell seems all wrong without you, like an echo heard miles from its maker.  It's almost too much to take" (hardback edition, pg. 12).
    
• "But with our faces front and center on the 'About' page as the creators--and Deedee as the photographer--we've always hoped to help other brown and black kids with our taste in music feel a little less alone" (pg. 33).
    
• "They say that dead people who have unfinished business with the living become ghosts.  That their spirits linger here, or in limbo somewhere, and that they can't rest in peace until they've done whatever it is that they needed to do.  But no one ever talks about the living who have unfinished business with the dead.  Where is the plane they're banished to, and how do they ever find peace again?" (pg. 65).
    
• "What's worse, though?  Telling someone I miss my granddad so much I can't breathe?  Or dressing like a seventy-year-old all of junior year?" (pg. 187).

Other reviews: The Bookish Libra and Teenreads


This book is available in the Greensboro Public Library.