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Clare Snow's Reviews > Beautiful Mess

Beautiful Mess by Claire Christian
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TW: Suicide, Self harm

I have things to say, including: I finished 3 days before book group! WTF I'm sure book groupers have things to say too. I might write things after.

And reading this finished my two February Book Challenges. Didn't think that was gonna happen.

I love this cover. It has shiny.
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Quotes Clare Liked

Claire Christian
“I just smiled and said nothing, because that's what I do.”
― Claire Christian, Beautiful Mess
tags: gideon
1 likes

Claire Christian
“Something happens when I write stuff down, it stops whirring around in my head and becomes this tangible thing that I can look at and prod and get used to.”
― Claire Christian, Beautiful Mess
tags: gideon, writing
0 likes

Claire Christian
“It scares me that our brains can haunt us from the inside.”
― Claire Christian, Beautiful Mess
tags: ava
3 likes

Claire Christian
“It makes the cracks in my heart that feel like they've been repairing themselves break all over again.”
― Claire Christian, Beautiful Mess
tags: grief
0 likes

Claire Christian
“It's the worst feeling knowing that Ava is upset, but what's worse is knowing that there's absolutely nothing I can do to fix it.”
― Claire Christian, Beautiful Mess
tags: grief
0 likes


Reading Progress

December 13, 2016 – Shelved as: to-read
December 13, 2016 – Shelved
May 16, 2017 – Shelved as: cover-love
May 16, 2017 – Shelved as: australian-author
May 16, 2017 – Shelved as: grief
May 16, 2017 – Shelved as: award-text-prize-shortlist
May 16, 2017 – Shelved as: award-text-prize-winner
September 19, 2017 – Shelved as: book-group
December 6, 2017 – Shelved as: aust-2017-pub
January 20, 2018 – Shelved as: read-challenge-aus-readers-2018
February 18, 2018 – Started Reading
February 18, 2018 –
page 15
5.24% "One chapter in, this book has shredded my heart and strewn the shards all over the floor. As Crong would say, "it makes a wicked noise with the collapse."

My memories are tangled with those shards:
don't want to dream your
wasps fluttering by your side,
breathless up a tree"
February 19, 2018 –
page 37
12.94% ""I wouldn't have got so worked up about the other job interview if I knew that's how easy they were.""
February 23, 2018 – Shelved as: read-challenge-loveozya-2018
February 23, 2018 –
page 57
19.93% ""Maybe he is actually from the seventies and I'm in some weird time parallel universe thing. Great, that's all I need this year, to become friends with some time-travelling guy.""
February 23, 2018 –
page 132
46.15% "How is everyone in this book so off the chart at communicating?"
February 24, 2018 –
page 140
48.95% "Why do so many books I've read lately have records in them? They're shit! Short and the sound quality is non-existent."
February 24, 2018 –
page 144
50.35% "Wtf Ava. You would have bullied Gideon in primary school."
February 24, 2018 –
page 154
53.85% "That's not suicide. Even if she had attempted suicide in the past, that's an accidental death. This book's handling of mental illness was so good, until this."
February 24, 2018 –
page 157
54.9% "Or is she the only one who thinks that?"
February 24, 2018 –
page 182
63.64% ""Andre never knew that there were two girls in Year 8 who learned to say I love you in Arabic just for him."

So yes, this funny, but here's another black character who's furthering the white girl's storyline. WTF The teachers even relate the vandalism to racism.

Ok, I agree it's Kel's storyline this furthers, but she's the black girl who died to further Ava's storyline!? How did this win the Text Prize??"
February 24, 2018 –
page 183
63.99% ""Sometimes I think. I don't want to kill myself, but if I died. That would be okay.""
February 24, 2018 –
page 196
68.53% "That's disingenuous. Nola does know people Ava knows - she's the school counsellor!? And for an alternative school, that kids attend due to problems at their former school, seeing the counsellor would be one of the first things a student does on arrival. Not as a result of a fellow student telling her its helpful - weeks later."
February 24, 2018 –
page 198
69.23% "I'm all over dirty innuendo (I live in the gutter) but that was not obvious."
February 25, 2018 –
page 204
71.33% ""It's so weird that you can literally put your tongue inside someone else's mouth and then have nothing to talk about.""
February 25, 2018 –
page 261
91.26% "I knew from other reviews that Gideon was gonna do something and I had a list of possibilties, but that takes the cake. It's so cleverly appropriate to who he is."
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: anxiety-disorder
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: self-harm
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: suicide
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: lgbtqia
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: friendship
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: family
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: high-school
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: australia
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: psychiatric-treatment
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: mental-illness
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: depression
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: sex
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: poetry
February 25, 2018 – Shelved as: letter-writing
February 25, 2018 – Finished Reading
February 27, 2018 – Shelved as: cbca-notables-2018
February 28, 2018 – Shelved as: inkys-longlist-2018
March 27, 2018 – Shelved as: read-challenge-all-aussie-2018
April 20, 2019 – Shelved as: loveozya
October 3, 2019 – Shelved as: published-2017
March 8, 2023 – Shelved as: owned-book

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