While I respect and encourage getting stories like these out to encourage women, this just seemed like a stretch. As long as she had been abused, I just found it completely unbelievable that she recovered within DAYS and was able to be physical with Brian in that short of a timespan. She would need to undergo some serious amount of therapy. And call me a pessimist, but there is no way the two of them will make it together once the healing process completes. I believe in fiction and stories, but this was just too much. *2.5* This book dealt with domestic abuse, so it was a tough read. While I felt that the romance was a sweet one, it just felt so misplaced because Nicole had been through a traumatic experience and instead of her getting therapy and healing mentally and physically, Brian puts the moves on her. I don't get it. Literally, Brian saves her life, moves her into his home, everyone falls in love with her and in turn she falls in love with them, she and Brian become a couple...kind of, she gets plastic surgery to look "plain", finds her missing daughter and gets engaged to Brian....ALL this happens within a few months. Then at the end of the book, she talks about getting therapy to talk about her problems...um HELLO, maybe that should have been done first! I'm not claiming to know anything about how abuse victims should act but doesn't anyone else find it unnatural to read about a woman falling in love and being intimate with someone just months after leaving her attacker? I felt like too much emphasis was placed on her damaged face. I thought the attention on her face would fade but it was a huge thing for most of the book. Some of the comments about her face were just insensitive. What happened to her family? If Nicole's story was on the news, then I assumed her family would have made an appearance to see how she was. I will say, that I liked Brian's humor and the fun banter that he had with Nicole. He did seem too good to be true though lol
What do You think about Don't Make Me Beautiful (2013)?
An amazingly beautiful, sad, tragic story with a happy ending.
—rih567
