Book Review: Beauty
Beauty by Stacy Claflin
4 stars
Category: New Adult
Note: Novella-length
Summary: Chase, formerly one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, met Penelope a few years earlier when she was hunting down the people who killed her parents. She claimed she was a time traveler and was trying to hunt down the murderers before they could kill her parents, so she could go back to her proper time and they would still be alive. Penelope made a lasting impression on him and he was convinced he was in love, though she still left to do her missions in the future. Since she traveled by a specific mirror, he hunted the country trying to find her mirror, and he finally found and bought it and waited for her to reappear, but when she does, she is younger than the version that he had met and doesn’t know him. So, he helps her on her mission to find her parents’ killers, and unravel problems about the time travel organization, while trying to romance her and make her fall in love with him.
Comments: I liked the idea for this book. I love plots like Back to the Future where the hero goes back in time to try to fix things. But the writing focuses on the relationship between Chase and Penelope to the point that it doesn’t give reasons for key things, like why were Penelope’s parents killed? Who killed them? As far as I could tell the killers were just some faceless goons with tattoos. What did those tattoos signify? No idea. Why did Chase have to search for the mirror? Wouldn’t he have known where it was the first time he met Penelope? What was the point of the Agency that Penelope worked for? It sends her on missions, and she said the Agency didn’t like her changing things in the past (like the past/future her getting to know Chase), but her main objective was to kill her parents’ killers, which would definitely change things in the past. When were her parents killed?
I didn’t really care for Chase. He was determined to make Penelope love him. Yes, I know Alpha. But it made him pushy and he just wasn’t going to take no for an answer and wasn’t inclined to listen to her or really get to know her. He had his mind made up from what he remembered of the future version of her. It made the relationship between them feel forced and one-sided. I never really felt any connection to him on Penelope’s part. Sure, she thought he was cute at times, but that doesn’t make a relationship.
I hated all of the sound effects. Each time I ran across reading one, it felt like suddenly I was thrust into a comic book or one of the old Batman episodes. I kept running across Thud! Wham! Clunk! Knock! Thunk! Whack!
And the ending, I know I’m being spoilery, but it felt like the author just ran out of energy on taking the story through the motions and just decided to end it without any actual explanation. The only explanation we got was a note from herself in the future that just appears at an opportune time in her pocket saying that future her tied up all of the loose ends with the Agency and Chase’s sister and took care of the group hunting their parents and that there were apparently two of them now since the future her was going to stay with the parents. The future her even, somehow unexplained, switched out the cellphone that was currently sitting in Penelope’s jacket that she was currently wearing with a note.
I love time travel stories, but they really need to explain things and be consistent for the plot to hold water. All the important key events can’t just all happen off camera. Why is this called Beauty? There are a few Beauty and the Beast references, I suppose. Chase has let his appearance go, so he’s got a large beard and scruffy hair and dresses a bit like a lumberjack and he lives in a castle complete with a hidden wing where he hides her mirror and won’t let her venture.
4 stars
Category: New Adult
Note: Novella-length
Summary: Chase, formerly one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, met Penelope a few years earlier when she was hunting down the people who killed her parents. She claimed she was a time traveler and was trying to hunt down the murderers before they could kill her parents, so she could go back to her proper time and they would still be alive. Penelope made a lasting impression on him and he was convinced he was in love, though she still left to do her missions in the future. Since she traveled by a specific mirror, he hunted the country trying to find her mirror, and he finally found and bought it and waited for her to reappear, but when she does, she is younger than the version that he had met and doesn’t know him. So, he helps her on her mission to find her parents’ killers, and unravel problems about the time travel organization, while trying to romance her and make her fall in love with him.
Comments: I liked the idea for this book. I love plots like Back to the Future where the hero goes back in time to try to fix things. But the writing focuses on the relationship between Chase and Penelope to the point that it doesn’t give reasons for key things, like why were Penelope’s parents killed? Who killed them? As far as I could tell the killers were just some faceless goons with tattoos. What did those tattoos signify? No idea. Why did Chase have to search for the mirror? Wouldn’t he have known where it was the first time he met Penelope? What was the point of the Agency that Penelope worked for? It sends her on missions, and she said the Agency didn’t like her changing things in the past (like the past/future her getting to know Chase), but her main objective was to kill her parents’ killers, which would definitely change things in the past. When were her parents killed?
I didn’t really care for Chase. He was determined to make Penelope love him. Yes, I know Alpha. But it made him pushy and he just wasn’t going to take no for an answer and wasn’t inclined to listen to her or really get to know her. He had his mind made up from what he remembered of the future version of her. It made the relationship between them feel forced and one-sided. I never really felt any connection to him on Penelope’s part. Sure, she thought he was cute at times, but that doesn’t make a relationship.
I hated all of the sound effects. Each time I ran across reading one, it felt like suddenly I was thrust into a comic book or one of the old Batman episodes. I kept running across Thud! Wham! Clunk! Knock! Thunk! Whack!
And the ending, I know I’m being spoilery, but it felt like the author just ran out of energy on taking the story through the motions and just decided to end it without any actual explanation. The only explanation we got was a note from herself in the future that just appears at an opportune time in her pocket saying that future her tied up all of the loose ends with the Agency and Chase’s sister and took care of the group hunting their parents and that there were apparently two of them now since the future her was going to stay with the parents. The future her even, somehow unexplained, switched out the cellphone that was currently sitting in Penelope’s jacket that she was currently wearing with a note.
I love time travel stories, but they really need to explain things and be consistent for the plot to hold water. All the important key events can’t just all happen off camera. Why is this called Beauty? There are a few Beauty and the Beast references, I suppose. Chase has let his appearance go, so he’s got a large beard and scruffy hair and dresses a bit like a lumberjack and he lives in a castle complete with a hidden wing where he hides her mirror and won’t let her venture.