I received a gifted galley of ONLY THE BEAUTIFUL by Susan Meissner for an honest review. Thank you to Berkley Publishing and PRH Audio for the opportunity!
Rating: 4.5 / 5
Publication Date: 4/18/2023
ONLY THE BEAUTIFUL follows two women. Rosie loses her family in an accident in 1938 and is taken in by a couple where she can work and train for a life caring for herself. Rosie has a condition which causes her to see colors when she hears sound and she’s good at covering this up, but when she becomes pregnant, she is sent away.
In Austria in 1947, Helen has been working as a nanny to a special little girl deemed imperfect by the world and Hitler’s regime and working to protect children who can’t protect himself. She remembers Rosie fondly from her time in the states and is surprised to no longer find Rosie living with her brother’s family. She seeks diligently to uncover what happened to this young woman.
Though historical fiction, this book has a lot of very timely messages about women and their rights to their own bodies when it comes to mental health and disability. This was not my first time reading about eugenics, but it remains incredibly horrible. the book doesn’t pull any punches when pointing out that we vilify the Germans and Hitler for what they were doing to people when the U.S. was doing horrible things as well in the not too distant past.
I really enjoyed getting to know both Rosie and Helen and I thought that the author did a good job of making their stories weave together. Both go through some horrifying ordeals, but they are very strong. I do suggest checking trigger warnings for this one.
This book takes an interesting approach to the dual timeline giving us Rosie’s story and then switching primarily to Hellen’s midway through the book. This took me a bit to get used to as I kept expecting to go back to Rosie at some point. Still, I think the way Rosie’s story does intertwine with Helen’s made for a good read.
ONLY THE BEAUTIFUL is out today!
DG Reads 