Review : My Life In Black and White by Natasha Friend

Summary (from Goodreads)

What if you lost the thing that made you who you are?

Lexi has always been stunning. Her butter-colored hair and perfect features have helped her attract friends, a boyfriend, and the attention of a modeling scout. But everything changes the night Lexi's face goes through a windshield. Now she's not sure what's worse: the scars she'll have to live with forever, or what she saw going on between her best friend and her boyfriend right before the accident. With the help of her trombone-playing, defiantly uncool older sister and a guy at school recovering from his own recent trauma, Lexi learns she's much more than just a pretty face.

Personal Thoughts

Lately, I've been going through a phase, an "intense books" phase. I keep wanting to read books that tackle difficult and mind-opening subject matters. While searching for such books, I came across My Life In Black and White. Once I read the synopsis, I knew I was in for an emotional ride. Turns out, I was right!

My Life in Black and White tells the story of beautiful and almost perfect, Alexa, whose perfect life is tossed upside down when an accident leaves half of her face disfigured. Now, Lexi must learn to accept who she has become and try to let go her past. 

Characters like Lexi are hard to like for the simple reason that they are just so perfect with them being the prettiest girls at school with great boyfriends, a loving families and great cliques of friends, that you can't help but think that they are shallow and vain. At least, that's what I thought at first. After the accident that devastated Lexi, I realized that she didn't exactly have the perfect life that she projected. She was a lot more messed up on the inside and even she wasn't aware of that. To pre-accident Alexa, life was about being gorgeous. She was the sort of girl who gave a lot of importance to her physical appearance, partly due to her mother who constantly breathed down her neck telling her to "watch her diet" and partly due to everyone swarming around her without missing a chance to let her know how beautiful she was. When Alexa first came out of her accident, she acted very bitter towards everyone. I could, figuratively, see her blood boiling inside of her veins. Full of self-hatred, she abandoned everything and stayed closed inside her bedroom the entire day. I found it unnerving initially, then when I really gave it some thought, I started to understand the agonizing experience she was going through. I really liked seeing Lexi grow as a character, becoming stronger and more mature than she ever was. Her sister, Ruthie, was my favorite character in the book. Witty, smart and very protective, she was a role-model to her younger sister. Theo with his cuteness and baggage, was yet another character I cherished. However, I was a teensy bit disappointed that he didn’t really appear until the last quarter of the book.

The plot of the book was fairly basic. It was the story of a girl coming to terms with the fact that she’s no longer looks like she was before and learning to forgive others. I thought the author did a fabulous job at really encompassing Lexi’s growth throughout the story. The ups and downs of her life felt genuine and palpable because Natasha Friend’s writing style is poignant and beautiful. One aspect that I enjoyed in the book was the relationship Lexi had with her beauty-queen mother. It wasn’t the kind of relationship that was always sunny. In fact, it had peaks and valleys, especially with Lexi’s mother not coming to terms with the fact that her daughter would never become a model. The book deals with other sensitive subjects such as cheating, broken friendships, figure consciousness and taking photographs of drunk unconscious naked girls , as well.

All in all, I thought My Life In Black and White was a captivating and meaningful read, that undoubtedly evoked all sorts of feelings from me. Because of the issues that it deals with, I truly think the book is worth reading!

Rating

Cover : 4/5
Plot : 4/5
Characters : 4/5
Writing : 4/5