Naoms's Reviews > Making Pretty

2.5

Originally Posted at Confessions of an Opinionated Book Geek

The synopsis of this book doesn’t give a clear summary of what this book is about. Like, at all. MAKING PRETTY is about one of the most messed up families I have ever encountered. Which is a feat considering there is no drugs or obvious abuse. Montana wasn’t raped and isn’t hiding in closets from her father, but still calling this family dysfunctional is putting it lightly.

Montana and Arizona are two years apart in age, but have done everything together. Except, for College. Being two years younger Montana just can’t go off to university like her older sister. She’s left behind in New York with her useless father. Their father loves them and he provides for them, but he is one of the worst dads I’ve ever read, because he’s a horrible parent. He’s the kind of guy who brings work home, literally. As a plastic surgeon he spends his time making people “more beautiful” and he doesn’t stop at the office. He looks at every woman around him and sees flaws he can fix. Even on his own daughters. For their 13 birthdays, their dad gave them gift certificates for plastic surgery! Way to tell your child that they are not good enough or beautiful.

The other horrible thing about their dad is that he can never be alone. Never. Which has lead to dozens of girlfriends and 4 ex-wives. Think about that. Montana is 17 and her father has already been divorced 4 times. The selfishness of a parent who brings that many people for his impressionable daughters to lose is beyond my comprehension. It’s disgusting and rage inducing.

Rage inducing is a good description for my relationship with MAKING PRETTY. I hated so many characters. Hated all the things they said and all the things Montana didn’t say to them. Especially, after her dad tells her that he’s in love again and that it’s different this time! The moment we meet the new girlfriend, someone that Montana knows intimately, the book spirals into an uncomfortable coming of age family drama that kept me on a roller coaster of anger and pity.

Corey Ann Haydu is a talented author. Her style is smart and rhythmic and pulls you into every detail of the story. I was pulled in. I felt for these characters as if they were real. As if Montana was my friend telling me the story. The author pulled emotions out of me like a puppet master.

The problem is that I believe that I hate this book. Not in the way that I hate offensive or condescending books. It’s not bad. The characters are developed and the story clear. There is the small problem that Montana does not sound 17. She sounds 15. She doesn’t have the voice of someone who has the pressure of SAT’s and the big choices ahead of her. 17 year olds have to decide on colleges and begin the path of who they want to be and what they want to do. Nothing about Montana tells me she has that kind of stress. I say 15, because by then you’ve been through a year of high school which is a life of its own. You’ve had some life experience and some struggles, but the hard choices are still ahead of you. Montana was an immature 17 which worked for the dysfunction of the book.

I hate this book because it pulled emotions out of me and then left me hanging. The ending is no ending at all. One of those pretentious books where the ending is all open ended and nothing is resolved and nothing is concluded.

It’s not that I need things wrapped up in a pretty bow (though that would be nice). No, it’s that Montana doesn’t get to grow. I don’t have any idea what will happen to her on the other side of the last chapter. I have no idea how she will deal with the choices she’s made. I have no idea if her and the boy she falls in love with, will stay together for awhile or if they will break up. Then there’s the fact that no one changes. In the beginning of the book, Montana thinks “I should tell him this. I should say that. I should voice my opinions for once in my life.” At the end of the book, Montana thinks “I should tell him this. I should say that. I should voice my opinions for once in my life.”

That is what I found most frustrating. This is a girl who received such bad parenting she literally doesn’t know what it means to be in a family. She doesn’t know what it means to love. Her parents have screwed her up and she never gets a chance to express herself! When there are small moments of arguments it’s never completed.

I guess that’s supposed to mimic real life, but really it’s b.s. Why did I read a book where people make the same choices. Then, Montana and Arizona begin a journey at the end of the book which is just a cheap ending for me, because I have no idea where it’s leading them or how it will help them. I don’t think it will help them. I think it will break them and the author gave me no clues that their world will have any kind of satisfying or happy conclusion. In fact, their journey probably will make a better story than the one I got.

I can’t quite figure out what the message behind this book is. Here is a girl who doesn’t have a real family life. Who has been left behind and abandoned more times than she can count. Understandably, she latches on to people like her boyfriend or Karissa the young woman she idolizes. But, she never learns what it means to be in a family besides the glimpses she sees of other families. Beyond her sister, she never grabs on to a healthy relationship. In all honesty, I think Montana is going to get knocked up a few times, divorced a few times and still search for a place to belong, because the author gave me no concrete evidence that it will end any other way.

A very weak ending. Disappointing, because I sincerely believe you should read her other book Life by Committee.