***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary of WE WERE BEAUTIFUL by Heather Hepler in exchange for my honest review.***

Mia, mourning the death of her sister Rachel in an accident that scarred her face, spends the summer in New York City with the strict, cold grandmother she’s only just met. Working at a family diner Mia makes friends and maybe a boyfriend as she heals from grief and guilt.

Mia begins the narration of WE WERE BEAUTIFUL with palpable pain that drips off the pages. Guilt. Longing. Abandonment. Her entire life is consumed with sadness. Heather Hepler gave Mia an authentic voice of a teen struggling.

The romance between Mia and Cooper didn’t cure her life, instead as she healed she opened herself up to relationships with friends, coworkers, her grandmother and eventually her father. I wish Hepler had addressed a Big Thing that happened to Rachel on the night of the accident. Not mentioning it again normalizes what should never be considered okay. The Big Thing isn’t something that should be thrown into books just to make characters interesting.

WE WERE BEAUTIFUL is a worthwhile read about forgiving oneself and healing from trauma.

We follow Mia who has a scar across her face but hardly remembers the night. When her dad sends her to her grandmothers who live in New York City, we see her bloom and grow.

The start of this book is a bit slow but I think that it's needed for this story to build up the characters growths. At first, I wasn't crazy about this book but once it gets to Mia, Fig and their group of friends I fell for this book. I love this group of friends, (Crazy but honest) for me, they are the main part of this story. In that group of friends, we meet Cooper. Mia and Cooper do kinda have an insta-love, but I think that's because they relate to each other, because of there painful pasts. Even though I like the relationship between Cooper and her. My two favorite relationship is Mia and her grandmother and Mia and Fig. However, at the end of the book, we see how a painful past doesn't define you, and how being honest with yourself and others will help. There's a relationship I can't talk about because of spoilers but I just wanted to say that I'm glad about how it changed by the end of this story.

If I could meet one character who isn't Fig it would be Waffles. I'm a cat person but this dog stole my heat.

This book does cover topics such as sibling loss, trauma, problematic parents and the power that art can have in one's life. There is a bit of religion, (Mia's grandmother.) The writing was well done, this is a character based book.

With that, this was a moving story filled with heart and joy!

Accident, trauma, scarring, and loss. That’s what drew me to this book. It was something I could relate to and I was eager to read Mia’s journey through the aftermath of surviving a car accident that killed her sister. While her sister died, Mia lived and she has a constant reminder of that tragic night because of the scarring from her hairline to her collarbone. After the accident, her mom left the family and became a nun and her dad can’t bother looking at her. She’s shipped off to NYC for the summer to live with a cold and uncaring grandmother she’s never met and upon arrival she’s notified that she has a job at a nearby restaurant where she reports to at 4 each morning.

Next we see Mia begin her job, get introduced to the large Brunelli family that owns the restaurant, make friends with Fig (one of the Brunelli’s daughters), and is introduced to Fig’s friends Sebastian, Sarah, and Cooper. Upon meeting the friends, Mia realizes that Cooper also has a deformity with his mouth. And so begins her budding friendship with this group along with growing closer to her grandmother.

Despite being intrigued with the first 35%, nothing really happened after that point. The secondary character were placeholders that didn’t get enough backstory to make them feel real. Sure, we learn that Fig, Sebastian, Sarah, and Cooper all lived through some form of parental abuse, but there isn’t anything else except they make art, Sebastian works at a Chinese restaurant, Sarah sings and writes, and Cooper works on a mural at a bakery before its grand opening. Then there was the instant love between Cooper and Mia that was built off of nothing. They hang out twice outside of a group and suddenly were in love.

There’s also the mystery surrounding the night Mia got in the accident. She was 13/14 (this happened on her birthday) and her older sister (who was at least 18) brought her to a party where they both got drunk and Mia had to drive her sister home. They crashed and Mia didn’t remember anything else. There wasn’t a mystery aspect to it. The older sister thinks it’s a good idea to bring a child to a party, they get drunk, older sister is almost in a comprising position with a guy, Mia has to be the adult and get them home, and she hits a deer. It was self-explanatory to know what happened despite Mia not remembering anything.

This was a book I would have passed on based on the lack of plot and character development, but thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

This is such a heartbreaking novel, in the best way possible - I learned a lot about these characters, and about myself as well. I highly recommend this story for anyone who wants to see perseverance in the face of adversity, especially when the adversity is self-imposed. Mia is such a wonderful character to get to know.

I really liked this story.
Mia's family have been through ALOT and no one is really working through it at all. And certainly no one is helping Mia work through it. Until she gets sent to stay with her Grandma. Then, a cast of characters is assembled that finally helps Mia see on through to the other side of the pain.
Really a great story about the power of family - even if the family isn't the one you were born into in the first place.

We Were Beautiful by Heather Hepler is an amazing heartbreaking novel.It follows Mia a heartbroken teen who has a scar on one side of her face from an accident you can't remember details from. The story starts with Mia being shipped off to stay the summer with her grandmother who she has never met. As the story unfolds Mia deals with a new job, friends, and trying to deal with her grief and forgiving herself. I thought is was a lovely story about forgiveness and loving yourself from the inside out.