Book Review: Beautiful Ugly | Alice Feeney

If you are looking to find out how Beautiful Ugly ends and my spoiler-y thoughts, head over to the spoiler review. This one is spoiler-free!

Alice Feeney has delivered another gripping and twist-y thriller! Once again I feel she has gaslit me in the best way. And I’m not the only one! Wait until you meet the characters she has crafted in Beautiful Ugly… Also I highly recommend doing the audiobook. Richard Armitage was fantastic and brought the moody, gothic vibes to life!

What is Beautiful Ugly about?

The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . . 
. . . and revenge.

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.

Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible — a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.

What did I think?

I absolutely love those two lines at the end. They are actually said in the book and I noted them, only to go back and read the teaser (I didn’t read it before starting) and see them appear. What a perfect way to describe this book! It’s told in alternating narrators. The bulk of the story is Grady’s and it is narrated in the present (with two time jumps). Interspersed are chapters told by Abby. She’s talking to a therapist about leaving her husband. These, we know, are happening before she disappeared. The two variations of the marriage are quite different! So who is lying? Or are they both?

The island is honestly such a good setting. It’s atmospheric and the people who live there are nice but strange. And they have strange rules! Visitors can’t have cars. The ferry runs but not on any schedule. No phones and no internet. Still, Grady has no one to talk to off the island, and it is the perfect set up for a writing retreat. In fact, he’s staying in the home of a famous author! Perhaps some inspiration?

Grady sees Abby on the ferry ride over. Or does he? That’s something you’ll have to read to find out. It’s clear Grady is in a deep state of grief and so the reader can’t completely trust his version of events. He doesn’t even trust his own version of events! But that doesn’t mean he’s a liar. You will be desperate to unravel the mystery of Abby’s disappearance and of the people on this island. How will it intersect? You’ll be shocked, that’s for sure.

A dark and moody read. I love a book about a writer and Grady was a great one! The setting pulled me right in. The ending was a total shocker. More than one! A bold ending, to say the least. If you want to talk about the ending, I unpack it all over on my spoiler review!