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Pretty

by Jillian Lauren (Goodreads Author)

3.14 of 5 stars 3.14 · rating details · 325 ratings · 67 reviews

An electrifying debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Some Girls.

Bebe Baker is an ex-everything: ex-stripper, ex-Christian, ex-drug addict, ex-pretty girl.

It's been one year since the car accident that killed her boyfriend left her scarred and shaken. Flanked by an eccentric posse of friends, she is serving out a self-imposed sentence at a halfway hous...more

Paperback, 288 pages

Published August 30th 2011 by Plume

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Dec 09, 2012 Nina rated it 3 of 5 stars

Have you ever been so lost in this world that you'd turn to anything just to feel like you belong? Resorting to drug use, stripping, and partying all to fill the void; all to just feel something other than empty. Bebe Baker felt this way before she realized that there is more to life than getting high, and that real friends are important and should be with you until the end. Jillian Lauren's novel, Pretty spoke to me in words of extreme sadness and confusion.
I believe Lauren's motive in writi...more Have you ever been so lost in this world that you'd turn to anything just to feel like you belong? Resorting to drug use, stripping, and partying all to fill the void; all to just feel something other than empty. Bebe Baker felt this way before she realized that there is more to life than getting high, and that real friends are important and should be with you until the end. Jillian Lauren's novel, Pretty spoke to me in words of extreme sadness and confusion.
I believe Lauren's motive in writing this book was to open her reader's eyes to the perils of how it is to go through a traumatic event in which one loses someone very important and how it affects the way they act and how it changes their outlook on life. The main character, Bebe, loses her boy friend, Aaron, in a car crash that leaves her permanently scarred as well; both mentally and physically. This event was so horrendous that she went to go live in a half way house while she finished cosmetology school. Her opinion of life is greatly changed from this event, and it reflects itself in her various mannerisms. For example, she used to be very confident with herself physically, but after the crash, she became very insecure about her scarred hands and legs.
Sadly, the part I disliked about this novel the most was the author's style. To me, it seemed fairly mundane; nothing spectacular. I could tell what emotion she was trying to convey in her writing, but it didn't particularly make me feel one way or another about it. I felt as though she didn't have a strong enough grip on her readers to posses them to get in depth with the plot line or not want to put the book down. Fortunately, however, I believe she made up for it in her ability to describe the setting so well. I always knew what was going on.
To me, the characters in this story were well thought out and believable. Each separate person had their own little quirks and ways of talking- it was as if the writer changed the dialogue to specially fit the character speaking. When Bebe's insane military lover was babbling about how he was Jesus and other nonsensical blabber, I could clearly envision him in my mind, deranged and void of sanity. I felt Bebe's character as well was wholesome and manufactured well. I could relate to her a lot.
I really appreciated how easy it was to navigate where the author placed the setting, especially since the book was full of flashbacks. At one point Bebe could be talking with one of her friends at home or at school, and she'd instantly think back to some other time which involved some other characters. The setting would be explained in detail so that I knew what was going on without having to be confused. The transition between settings was immaculate as well, and i didn't have to reread passages to realize what was happening. I could clearly tell that it took place in modern California by the way people spoke and how advanced the technology was.
Trying to recover from her old way of life, Bebe counts down the days until she could finally graduate cosmetology school. Along the way she makes a few pretty tight friendships with the girls at her home and school. Even though she is still shaken by her boy friend's death, she enters a relationship with an artistic man who's even more mentally unstable than her. As the story progresses, the reader can see just out of hand her situation becomes, even though she's making an effort to recover. Her old way of life tempts her like Satan tempted Eve, and she finds herself slipping back into drug and alcohol use. Although, nearing the end of the story, she gets her priorities straight and learns what it's like to have everything taken away once more.
Personally, I felt as though this book connected to me individually. Many people that I know have substance abuse problems, and it made me think of them. I also felt as though I connected to Bebe in the sense that I have a view of what's pretty and that I have to strive to achieve that. Her struggles in finding herself as a person were practically parallel to mine. I felt comfort in knowing that even in a fictional story, there are others out there who have to deal with not so desirable events.
I'd recommend this story to any girl who is interested in thinking in detail about life, since it is more of a female oriented book. I'd also recommend it to anyone looking for a story which explains what happens when things get out of hand. If someone I knew was heading down the wrong path, I'd might try and interest them in this novel to hint that they might need to get their act together.
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May 30, 2012 Eye-shuh rated it 2 of 5 stars

Eh...it was OK. It was interesting. There is a lot of unnecessary repetitiveness that makes me think that either the author mistakenly thought that would be good to add to the experience of the book basically being the main character's train of thought or she just isn't that great of an author yet and should have had a bit more practice before getting published. It's the kind of book that's suppose to seem unpolished but it's clear the author didn't do that on purpose, she just didn't get the wr...more

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Feb 11, 2012 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, addiction, dark, eating-disorders, drama, girls, grief, mental-illness

Bebe Baker is in recovery, living in a halfway house in Los Angeles. She moved to California with a talented musician, Aaron, in hopes of starting a new life away from her dysfunctional family in Ohio. But when they reached LA, things didn't go according to plan. Bebe had always relied on her pretty looks to get by, but when they get wrapped up in drugs, and Aaron coerces her to start stripping, Bebe finds herself in a downward spiral. Things only get worse when a horrible car accident leaves Aa...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Deborah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-life, available-on-kindle, new-author-for-me, psychological, woman-writer, women-s-lit

"There's a blaze of light in every word

It doesn't matter which you heard

The holy or the broken Hallelujah"

Leonard Cohen

Jillian Lauren begins her brilliant novel with this gorgeous, well-known refrain, then she takes that Hallelujah and sings it as her story like a bird whose heart thumps to break through its throat. This is a magnificent book. It will take you through every emotion you have and some you may not have known you had. Lauren is a wise woman with a truth to tell that will set you...more

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Dec 25, 2011 Danna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: chick-lit, favorites, recommended, tragic, speed-read, sex-drugs-rock-roll

"Stop believing in one thing and you make room for believing in something else."

I was anxious to read Pretty because I was over the moon for Jillian Lauren's first book, her memoir Some Girls. Pretty is a novel, in the same vein as Lauren's first book, written in a first-person narrative by a young woman named Bebe. Bebe grew up in Toledo, OH and was anxious to leave town after her alcoholic father passed away. Her escape came when Aaron arrived in the local bar she tended, there with his jazz b...more

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Oct 09, 2011 Caitlin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

When I was a little girl I used to tell people that I wanted to be an adventuress when I grew up. I'll admit that I was influenced by a Marlene Dietrich movie - Morocco (1930) - in which she plays a night club singer (Amy) who falls in love with Gary Cooper's character (Tom), a private in the French Foreign Legion. Although she is engaged to Adolphe Menjou's character (La Bessiere - a wealthy Frenchman), Amy realizes at the end of the film that she is truly in love with Tom. The film ends with h...more When I was a little girl I used to tell people that I wanted to be an adventuress when I grew up. I'll admit that I was influenced by a Marlene Dietrich movie - Morocco (1930) - in which she plays a night club singer (Amy) who falls in love with Gary Cooper's character (Tom), a private in the French Foreign Legion. Although she is engaged to Adolphe Menjou's character (La Bessiere - a wealthy Frenchman), Amy realizes at the end of the film that she is truly in love with Tom. The film ends with her walking off into the desert, following the French Foreign Legion. Directed by Josef Sternberg, this film and Dietrich's character struck me as having all of the doomed romance a girl could ever want. Later there was Lady Brett Ashley (The Sun Also Rises), Greta Garbo in The Green Hat and Camille, and any number of other women who made unconventional choices in search of love and adventure.

Later in life I rethought these women as role models. I still love the notion of an unconventional life filled with risk-taking, but the consequences of certain kinds of risks seem stark and uncompromising. What happens to Amy in the desert in her high heels and cocktail dress? Both the Garbo characters end up dead and Lady Brett Ashley becomes ever less appealing as you re-read the book in adulthood. It's hard to make unconventional choices and not end up crazy, dead, or alone with a lot of cats for company.

Ms. Lauren's first novel, Pretty, is much in keeping with this tradition, although as it plays out in its more modern form. Reminiscent in ways of Prozac Nation, in today's world we are more easily confronted with the reality of the aftermath of a life of adventure. Sure, following the sexy jazz musician out of the club, onto the tour bus, and into the night is all about adventure, but just as the aftermath of the other imagined adventures in my fantasy life is suboptimal, Bebe's aftermath is equally fraught with the consequence of poor choices.

For all its consequences played out across the novel, Pretty manages to be surprisingly hopeful. You can learn to make better choices or at least to live with the consequences of the risks you take - regret optional. Adventure can be found in many different places and men don't always have to be unavailable and bad for you. I liked Bebe, flaws and all, and I liked her story. As with the other fictional ladies I admired she takes her chances and isn't afraid to pay the toll, but best of all is that she is equally unafraid to face life on the other side of the risks.

Ms. Lauren has things to say and says them without apology or cliche. She can write. Highly recommended. (less)

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Sep 21, 2011 Susie Kline rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am so grateful to have the opportunity to read and review such wonderful books. It seems they keep getting better and better! I was given a copy of Pretty to review and I have a copy to give away. Check out directions for entering at the end of the post!

Pretty is the story of Bebe. The cover describes her as:

BeBe Baker is an ex-everything: ex-stripper, ex-Christian, ex-drug addict, ex-pretty girl.

What BeBe does very very well is tell her story. As she recovers from the death of her lover in a...more

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Sep 07, 2011 Val rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pretty is the kind of book that takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotions. You instantly feel for the character and you almost develop a close relationship to Bebes.

This book deals with some really big issues, drug addiction, recovery and love. Although they are very big issues and sometimes tough to write about, I felt that the author wrote this book with elegance. The writing was fluid, and the character’s thoughts and words seemed very real. This book was honest.

Throughout most of the...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Roxanna rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an incredibly sad, yet powerful story about a person who struggles with guilt, ADD, chemical dependency, and so much more. She aims to stay clean with the end goal of graduating from Cosmetology school. The title of this book is compelling because her struggles are as much internal as they are external. She is scarred physically and emotionally from a tragic accident and finds support in a halfway house so she can try and work through her addiction as well the emotional scarring from unh...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Peace Love and Reviews rated it 4 of 5 stars

It has a promising start. The scene was Bebe and her then boyfriend Aaron was in a bar playing pool, high as kite. Aaron was a musician and Bebe fell in love with him and followed him everywhere. Nothing went as planned and she became an addict and a stripper. That fateful night Aaron died in a car accident. Bebe ended up in a halfway house in LA where she is studying cosmetology to give her some skills when she gets released. She met another questionable character as her new boyfriend, Jake; a...more

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Jul 14, 2011 Bookworm rated it 3 of 5 stars

About:
Pretty is an edgy novel about a teenage girl named Bebe who leaves home with a musician named Aaron and ends up becoming a stripper and an addict. Aaron and Bebe's partying habits are out of control, they both drink too much and use drugs. One night, after a big fight between the two, Aaron is killed while driving under the influence. Bebe survives the car accident, but finds herself in a rehab facility trying to get her life together.
After she finishes rehab, Bebe goes to live at a halfw...more About:
Pretty is an edgy novel about a teenage girl named Bebe who leaves home with a musician named Aaron and ends up becoming a stripper and an addict. Aaron and Bebe's partying habits are out of control, they both drink too much and use drugs. One night, after a big fight between the two, Aaron is killed while driving under the influence. Bebe survives the car accident, but finds herself in a rehab facility trying to get her life together.
After she finishes rehab, Bebe goes to live at a halfway house. The house offers free training at a beauty school in order to help its inhabitants better themselves and become functioning members of society.
Throughout the story you get a glimpse of Bebe's life while she finishes up cosmetology school. She starts to date a fellow rehab patient, a paranoid schizophrenic named Jake. Except for her friends, Bebe is alone in the world, her mother being an addict herself and no help to her.

My thoughts:
I found Pretty to start off really interestingly enough. Here is this young woman who has been through alot, nearly dying in a car accident, then going to rehab and trying to get clean. Then I found the story to fizzle a bit in the middle. I was tired of hearing about Bebe's cosmetology school and the different beauty techniques she was learning. Her fellow classmates and halfway house inhabitants did interest me as I read. These were characters who had lost their way but banded together to help each other out.
Bebe's new boyfriend Jake was disturbing to read about, especially when he would go on his rants about religion. He is a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks he is Jesus. I found it surprising that Bebe didn't recognize his symptoms as out of control and dangerous while she was dating him.

There are flashbacks throughout the book, but I didn't find them to be confusing, they blended in well with the storyline and gave more of a backdrop as to where Bebe was coming from.

"Pretty" is a main theme as you read. Bebe herself is tall and beautiful, yet is now covered in scars after the car accident.
I thought this novel was young adult fiction, but after reading it, I'd say it's best for ages seventeen and up. There is graphic language throughout as well as a descriptive stripping scene in one of Bebe's flashbacks.

The story picked up toward the last part of the book, when a few twists are added and I was curious as to how it would all end.
For the most part, a well written plot and interesting characters made Pretty a worthwhile read. This was my first time reading Jillian Lauren and hopefully not my last.

read my full review here
http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/201...(less)

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Sep 03, 2011 Knitpurlgurl rated it 2 of 5 stars

Pretty is the story of Bebe (Beth) Baker. Bebe, raised by an alcoholic mother, whose father, an alcoholic jazz musician, dies while she is very young, meets Aaron, a confident trumpet player in a jazz band and leaves her town of Toledo, OH behind to follow him to California. While living in LA, a speedbump on the way to San Francisco, Bebe takes a job as an exotic dancer and becomes an alcoholic/addict. After a fight with Aaron in a bar, the two of them, wasted, get in the car and end up in a mo...more Pretty is the story of Bebe (Beth) Baker. Bebe, raised by an alcoholic mother, whose father, an alcoholic jazz musician, dies while she is very young, meets Aaron, a confident trumpet player in a jazz band and leaves her town of Toledo, OH behind to follow him to California. While living in LA, a speedbump on the way to San Francisco, Bebe takes a job as an exotic dancer and becomes an alcoholic/addict. After a fight with Aaron in a bar, the two of them, wasted, get in the car and end up in a motor vehicle accident which leaves Aaron in a coma. Eventually, Aaron's brain activity has ceased and his mother consents to pull the plug. Vowing that she will never talk to God again, Bebe is left to start anew.

Bebe ends up at a state-sponsored halfway house, Serenity, where she lives with other clean and sober women who are trying to put the pieces of their lives back together. While living at Serenity, Bebe and her roommate, Violet, receive training at Moda Beauty Academy to become cosmetologists. Although Bebe is less than enthusiastic about her training, she looks at it as a step in her journey of sobriety. During this time, Bebe becomes involved with a man from the men's Serenity halfway house, Jake, who is an ex-marine, recovering addict, and schizophrenic who occasionally thinks he's Jesus.

With her boyfriend off his meds and now in a psychiatric ward, pregnant, about to lose her only real home, and a bad influence from her past trying to wedge his way into her 'now,' Bebe finds herself having to make some tough choices. Does she look to her future? Does she reach out to someone from her past? Does she stay clean and sober or let it slide away along with her pain? As Bebe explores these questions, the story comes to it's climax and Bebe realizes, in the Moda supply closet, that life goes on. That there is a future for her. And that maybe for the first time in her life, she is seeing things clearly.

I found the plot and characters to be predictable. I thought the story lacked any real depth. That's not to say that there wasn't sufficent grit. I think it had great potential to be a good story, but wasn't realized in this abridged context. I would've like to see Lauren form the characters a tad more, give them more depth than a two sentence description of the character's background. -Especially since Vi & Bebe are such good friends and then there's Buck and Javi. I'd have liked to read more of their stories. I would have liked to read why when Bebe seems so numb and disconnected from life, that she has these friends. Like I said, the story has terrific potential, but it left me feeling like I read an abridged version of a book. Also, I'm not entirely convinced by the Jake storyline. It just doesn't fit well in the book. (less)

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Apr 29, 2012 Jennifer Waite rated it 3 of 5 stars

From review posted on my website: http://www.thiscantwaite.com/pretty-j...

Bebe Baker recounts events leading up to her current circumstances, in a halfway house and trying to finish cosmetology school, where she's trying to really put her life together for the first time. I wouldn't say she's reinventing herself since she's essentially been fumbling around up until this point.

I give it 3 stars. Good book, easy to dance to.

I'm more interested in the author. Jillian Lauren really is a former stri...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars

PRETTY follows Bebe Baker, a young woman coming to terms with her boyfriend’s death and her rocky journey to sobriety. Bebe is an ex-everything: ex-stripper, ex-Christian, ex-drug addict, ex-pretty girl. It’s been one year since the car accident that killed her boyfriend left her scarred and shaken. Flanked by an eccentric posse of friends, she is serving out a self-imposed sentence at a halfway house, while trying to finish cosmetology school. Amid the rampant diagnoses, over-medication, compul...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Karen Fowler rated it 5 of 5 stars

It is rare that I find myself reading an honest-to-gods paper copy of a novel these days, but I received the ARC of Pretty so I once again found myself with the cramping hand that comes from holding open a book for extended periods of time. In this case, with this book, I did not mind in the least.

While not the sort of literature I’d normally gravitate towards, I’m glad that I ended up reading Pretty, if for no other reason than to discover the brilliant author. Jillian Lauren writes with a crys...more

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Aug 11, 2011 Laura Young rated it 4 of 5 stars

http://darkelvengirl.blogspot.com/201...

Pretty by Jillian Lauren. Fiction. I had hard time figuring out what I wanted to rate this. I debated between 3 and 4 stars, and finally chose 4 out of 5 stars. Nice cover and the eyes are not open! I greatly dislike books where the people on the cover stares at you... And still stares at you. Release date August 30, 2011.
This book cover many topics from drug use to drinking problems to eating disorders. I have to say that like Crank these kind of books ta...more http://darkelvengirl.blogspot.com/201...

Pretty by Jillian Lauren. Fiction. I had hard time figuring out what I wanted to rate this. I debated between 3 and 4 stars, and finally chose 4 out of 5 stars. Nice cover and the eyes are not open! I greatly dislike books where the people on the cover stares at you... And still stares at you. Release date August 30, 2011.
This book cover many topics from drug use to drinking problems to eating disorders. I have to say that like Crank these kind of books take patience for me to read I can't read them to fast or I get to bored easily. Unlike Crank though I didn't get the strong pull to read it all day. Thank goodness for that because then I get no sleep. Bebe almost lost everything she worked for by giving in to the need and even doing that why she was pregnant. I was thinking:You stupid person thank about the baby. What are you doing trying to get him killed? (Though also going on in my head: Was not shocked when that came up.)
I was giggling I found out that my favorite numbers were in the book. "The clock reads 11:11." Just had to put that in the review.

Pretty is about Bebe a girl who survived a car accident while her boyfriend Aaron did not. When the accident took place they were both drunk and arguing. Not a good thing to do be doing when you can barely concentrate on the things in front of you. She then goes and lives in a what I would call a rebab home. With Susan as the head lady. "Along with the word "Concern." Susan is fond of "wonderful.""

Bebe left home and doesn't even think about going back even four years later. Bebe has a interesting personality with many many problems. You know what she looks like her legs and hands cover in scars from the car accident. Bebe goes through a lot in just 288 pages. She has a different way by the end of it. I gotta say I love happy endings. At least she's able to work out all the issues she has. Even if there's a slight chance the baby will inherit his fathers craziness. Let's hope not though. We don't need another person walking around calling them selves Jesus now do we? Cough cough Jake.
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Oct 16, 2011 Jade Eby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Originally published at my blog Chasing Empty Pavements

This was such a heartbreaking novel but one that reminds everyone that there hope can lead to the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Good: The language of the writing was superb. From the very first line all the way to the end I was captivated by what Bebe had to say. There were some lines that were so visceral I had to reread the line again. Pg. 5 Bebe says, “My love for Aaron was so acid it scraped my veins raw.” Can you imagine loving so...more Originally published at my blog Chasing Empty Pavements

This was such a heartbreaking novel but one that reminds everyone that there hope can lead to the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Good: The language of the writing was superb. From the very first line all the way to the end I was captivated by what Bebe had to say. There were some lines that were so visceral I had to reread the line again. Pg. 5 Bebe says, “My love for Aaron was so acid it scraped my veins raw.” Can you imagine loving someone so much that you feel it into your veins, you feel it so much you think one wrong step and your veins will be stripped completely bare? This is how Bebe’s love for Aaron came across to me. That deep. She was a very interesting character to me. While reading about her addictions and recovery process I almost imagined her being on the show Intervention…it was that realistic for me. I felt like Bebe’s road to redemption was about as slow and steady as it could be for someone recovering from not only her own demons but the loss of a life of someone she loves. The sobriety house she lives in “Serenity” and her fellow comrades are all grounded in reality and they feel so close to me now that I feel like I could turn the corner and see Buck or Violet. I can feel the sense of urgency for Bebe when she wants to graduate cosmetology school, not because it’s such a great career, but because it’s an achievement that Bebe didn’t think she could do. It’s a step in the right direction…it’s her way of moving on from her addictions and the past. Her gay friend, Javi, is a hoot and I totally love the role he plays in the novel. The other thing I LOVED about this novel is the way Jillian Lauren portrayed the mentally ill Jake. He is schizophrenic with delusions of being God, Jesus or both. I thought she handled it very realistically and showed the spiral these people go through when they are off their meds. The relationship between Jake and Bebe is so unbelievably sad. Jillian Lauren is able to show how it is possible to fall in love with someone who is mentally ill, but the probability of it working is slim. It really is heartbreaking. The ending though is so perfect for this novel. It isn’t overly positive but it’s not negative either. It’s the right mixture of happy and hopeful. I loved this novel!

The Bad: Nothing negative to say about the novel!

Overall, this was a beautifully written, harrowing novel. It grabs at every part of you until you are forced to feel what Bebe is feeling. So marvelous. A!!!
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Sep 06, 2011 Lorri rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this book in a day. It was a bit depressing and I didn't really see the point of the story, but I did like the friendships that developed among the characters. It seems like everyone living in the house is depressed and spends a good amount of time thinking about how bad life is. I've never been an addict so I don't know how recovery would be, but dwelling on all the bad things sure isn't going to move you forward!

Bebe is in a car accident with her boyfriend, who later dies. She is left w...more

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Jul 14, 2011 Eileen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: advance-reader-copy, literary-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I won this Advanced Reader Copy through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Giveaways. I had not read Lauren's earlier memoir, Some Girls, but the synopsis sounded interesting, and so I gave it a go.

I am definitely not sorry to have received this copy. Lauren has done a very good job of creating the rather gritty world of a young woman, Bebe, who is a living in a halfway house while going to Cosmetology school and trying to pick up the pieces of her life as she recovers from the wounds inflicted on he...more I won this Advanced Reader Copy through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Giveaways. I had not read Lauren's earlier memoir, Some Girls, but the synopsis sounded interesting, and so I gave it a go.

I am definitely not sorry to have received this copy. Lauren has done a very good job of creating the rather gritty world of a young woman, Bebe, who is a living in a halfway house while going to Cosmetology school and trying to pick up the pieces of her life as she recovers from the wounds inflicted on her by her own demons and a cruel dash of fate. Bebe is a believable character, and I think Lauren does an excellent job of portraying the interior world of a someone who is impulsive, reckless, and vaguely obsessive compulsive in her thought patterns. In many ways, this book reminds me of well written memoirs, such as The Bell Jar, Girl Interrupted, or Welcome to My Country - it rings with that interior clarity and truth of someone who is devolved and trying to put meaning back into a life that has become fraught with meaninglessness.

Bebe escapes the drudgery of Toledo, Ohio, impulsively hopping on a bus with Aaron, a jazz musician. They make their way to California, meaning to get to San Francisco, but landing in L.A. One evening while at a bar, Bebe and Aaron argue, leave together and wind up An argument leads them Aaron and Bebe leaving a bar, and becoming involved in a motor vehicle accident which leaves Bebe's hands and legs terribly scarred, and Aaron dead.

Bebe is trying to recover from Aaron's death, her physical injuries and her mental descent into drugs and alcohol, and has been living clean for about a year, but, she can't quite get her shit together, and she flirts with disaster by having an illicit relationship with a Jake, a paranoid schizophrenic alcoholic/drug addict, suffering from post-war PTSD.

She counts off the days until she is finished with beauty school, using it as a tenuous tether to her grasp for reality, all while coping with the loss of Aaron, Jake's backslide into madness, and, the realization that she is pregnant with an unstable mad-man's child.

The writing is very good - all dialogue is believable, and the story has good pacing. Lauren uses langauge effectively, and creates evocative images using the jargon of jazz music, drugs and the mental health world, with a backdrop of beauty school as the land of salvation, for the professionals who create beauty as much as the clients who want to have it.

I greatly enjoyed this book.(less)

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Sep 22, 2011 Amber (The Musings of ALMYBNENR) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 100-reading-challenge-2011, 2011-e-book-challenge, arcs

Bebe is an ex-everything: an ex-Christian, ex-stripper, ex-addict, ex-pretty girl.

Bebe ends up at a halfway house after becoming physically and emotionally scarred from the car accident her boyfriend, Aaron, died from. She has been sober for almost a year although she has her moments of almost-impossible-to-control urges. She suffers through day after day of cosmetology school to give herself a goal. She makes it through with the help of goth girl Violet who also resides at the halfway house and...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Lesley Peck rated it 4 of 5 stars

I just received the book yesterday. UPS was having issues. :( But I did start reading it and am about half way through. All I can say is WOW. This book is riveting. It's just amazing. I find it hard to put into words just how I feel. It seems very real. You find yourself wanting Bebe to do better and overcome. Truly emotional.

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Jan 13, 2012 Joemmama rated it 3 of 5 stars

Pretty is not a pretty story. Bebe has been in a horrible accident that killed her boyfriend and left her drug addled and scarred, trying to make a new life. Living in a halfway house, she is attending beauty school with a variety of characters. As she struggles to make her way, she encounters people who are both good and bad for her.

Breaking all the rules is a way of life for her and she finds some comfort with another bad boy. When her heart is broken, yet again, Bebe finds that her friends ma...more

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Oct 04, 2011 Chelsea rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: dont-waste-your-time, just-stupid, hated, mind-numbing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 28, 2011 Leah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2011, ebooks, for-review

Pretty is a novel that is hard to define. It doesn’t seem to really be able to place itself in any kind of genre, at least not one I read so I presume that that probably makes it literary fiction. It’s not a teenage read, it’s not really Chick Lit… so I think it’s trying to be a literary novel. It’s not a pretty novel, either. Here there are no pies in the sky, no happily ever after, just a girl struggling to get her life together after her boyfriend dies in a drug-fuelled car crash. Bebe is an...more Pretty is a novel that is hard to define. It doesn’t seem to really be able to place itself in any kind of genre, at least not one I read so I presume that that probably makes it literary fiction. It’s not a teenage read, it’s not really Chick Lit… so I think it’s trying to be a literary novel. It’s not a pretty novel, either. Here there are no pies in the sky, no happily ever after, just a girl struggling to get her life together after her boyfriend dies in a drug-fuelled car crash. Bebe is an ex-lot-of-things. But now she’s clean and sober, trying to get through Cosmetology school (hair-dressing/make-up, that kind of thing) and trying to not fall off any of the wagons she’s so precariously been balanced on for a year, since the accident.

I admit, I was immediately intrigued by the novel and the opening chapter where Bebe tells us how Aaron died was both tragic and sad and I was interested to know how it would go from there – I don’t read many books about drug addicts/strippers and I was intrigued as to where Lauren would take Bebe’s story. As it is, we pick up a year later as I’ve said above. I found the novel hard-going. It’s not a pleasing read. It’s not a book where I get to the end and find myself smiling. It’s a difficult novel, hard to swallow, even harder to read about. I have no idea what it’s like to have a drug addiction, what it is to crave alcohol and to know that someone like Bebe, like all the girls in her halfway house, are all struggling every day to stay clean made me sad. Some say I have an idealistic view of the world – I wouldn’t even know where to buy drugs, never mind anything else and all I felt while reading the novel was sadness. For all the people who aren’t lucky enough to have good parents like I have, that despite Pretty being fiction, there are hundreds, thousands even, of people out there like Bebe and books like this do bring it home that the world isn’t perfect.

I did struggle to finish the book. Bebe’s life was just really, incredibly depressing, incredibly sad and mainly I read books to make myself happy, to get a happy ever after and whilst I knew what I was reading about when I started reading it, I truly didn’t expect it to be as sad as it was. It’s a brilliantly written novel, although the amount of Cosmetology lessons bordered on boring after a while, but it is an incurably sad novel and I did have to force myself to finish it, skimming the pages on my way to the end because I just couldn’t cope with Bebe’s horrible life. It was as if the novel – and by extension Bebe herself – had no hope. There was no light seemingly at the end of Bebe’s tunnel. I applaud Jillian Lauren for writing the novel and there will be loads of people who do love the book and are able to connect to the characters and perhaps see the book for what it really is, but I prefer my books to be a tad lighter, to be a tad happier. Pretty is not a pretty novel, but it is very well written and tells the tale of a very difficult subject. I’m just not its target audience.(less)

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Nov 25, 2012 Carissa added it

I loved this book, and I would keep it in regular rotation to read again and again.
I've been there, Bebe.
Bebe is the main character, and I love novels written from first person, inside the character's head. She's currently in a halfway house, recovering from a bad car accident which killed her boyfriend. It's novel about searching, about connections, about family--and lack thereof--about love and loss and sex and drugs. All the good makings of a novel. It's not for the squeamish, it's not for...more

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Jul 03, 2012 Monet rated it 2 of 5 stars

This isn't a great story. There's nothing really striking or unique about it. It's a complex junkie tragedy like you'd hear about on the news or in an AA meeting. But not unique. It seems like a story I've been told before. Girl gets messed up. Girl struggles with getting better.

As a portrait of a character, however, it's kindof brilliant. I enjoyed finding out who the main character was. She's very real and three-dimensional. Her personality alone was enough to keep me reading. In that respect...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Jenn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, reading-challenge-12, young-adult, contemporary, standalone

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 15, 2012 Amblingbooks.com marked it as to-read

Shelves: fiction, audiobook

"Utterly riveting. Jillian Lauren renders the taste and feel of wretched excess�be it sex, drugs, food, or Los Angeles�with a savage veracity and style all her own�Jillian Lauren is the real deal." � Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

Listen to Pretty on your iPhone, desktop, or smartphone.

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Feb 04, 2013 Coalette Psuik rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned-books

This book was surprisingly good, clever, witty and I wanted to keep reading. If I was feeling down in my day, I would open the book knowing I would walk away with a few chuckles. I do wish there was more of a story line in the beginning of the book,and it did bounce around a few times making it hard to see where she was going with the story.. All in all, great book!

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Jul 26, 2012 Tricia rated it 4 of 5 stars

I got this for $1 at HPB a couple weeks back & didn't expect too much from it, but I ended up really enjoying it. I'm not sure why exactly, but her writing style was very engrossing. She's just a really good storyteller, I think. I also kept subconsciously predicting what would happen & she would take it in a completely different direction, so that was quite unexpected and nice.

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About Jillian Lauren

Author and performer Jillian Lauren grew up in suburban New Jersey and fled across the water to New York City. She attended New York University for three minutes before dropping out to work in downtown theater, where she performed with Richard Foreman’s Ontological Hysteric Theater, among others.
Her New York Times bestselling memoir, SOME GIRLS: My Life in a Harem, was published by Plume in April...more

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Quotes from Pretty

“Fall and I'll catch you. And that was all I'd ever wanted- someone to catch me.” — 7 people liked it

“Some days seem like the end of your life but then they aren't and you still have to figure out how to wake up again.” — 3 people liked it

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