Jacqueline's Reviews > A Beautiful Mess

I didn't enjoy this. I really had to force myself to finish it. Looking at all the 5 star reviews I wondered whether we'd read the same book.

The main problem for me was the narrative style - it skipped from person to person, sometimes even within a single paragraph and we got everyone's inner thoughts - including the people who were apparently plotting against her. That removed the suspense and kind of spoiled the story for me.

Some of the dialogue felt clunky, I just couldn't hear the characters saying it. His dirty mouth was the one thing about this book that I enjoyed, but it didn't make up for some of the strange things the characters said at other times.

Then there's the letter. He's had a letter for five years that has all the answers to the life, the universe and everything in it. But, despite being an alpha male, billionaire, astute businessman who runs a security company that relies on gathering information, he doesn't open it. He thinks about it lots of times but he doesn't open it. Clearly it was supposed to build the suspense in the story, but I found it unbelievable and plain irritating.

The other infuriating thing was that this was half of the story - or even a third of a story for all I know. This book ends on a major cliffhanger and you get only questions, few answers in this. Whatever it is, I can't read any more of this narrative style - I really cannot recall ever reading anything written in this style before, it made it so hard to read and follow. I was constantly stopping to try to work out whose head we'd now moved into.