Fascinating and impactful yet accessible and entertaining, You Could Be So Pretty is the ideal mix for a YA dystopian feminist tale like this. Holly Bourne is an amazing talent.

I'm a Holly Bourne fan, so was eagerly anticipating this book. However, I was not prepared for the impact that the conceit of the book had on me. To see layers of misogyny and patriarchal oppression repackaged in alternative language felt like a brutal punch to the gut at times. Let me be clear though, in a good way. Such a good way. Highly recommended, especially for the teens in your life.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I feel like I’m going to have a hard time describing You Could Be So Pretty, but I’ll try. This book feels like a slap in the face, and one you see coming. I mean, when you read this, everything feels eerily familiar, yet different. You’re intrigued, confused, curious, you know something’s deeply wrong here and, deep down, you know how deeply it echoes with real life, too. It’s supposed to be a dystopia, but to be honest, it hit really close to home at times and, woah. I loved that.
Holly Bourne takes us in a world where being Pretty means everything. Characters who identify as women put on literal masks, make-up and hair and everything to look as pretty as possible, not to let any flaw, any gray hair, anything show. Everyone has to be perfect, everyone desperately seek approval, validation from others on their looks… and the ones who don’t are invisible, don’t fit in, are mocked. I absolutely loved the way the world was built and how terrifyingly real it felt.
You Could Be So Pretty is told from two different POV. We follow Belle, a rule-follower, always masking and seeking validation and Joni, a rule-breaker, never masking, living with her “rebel” mother. I loved how their visions of the world crashed, how their interactions put everything back into question for Belle and how they changed, grew with each other. They were both such fantastic characters, each with their own views, personalities and I loved them both!
You Could Be So Pretty is incredibly addictive. I really won’t spoil it all for you, but I couldn’t stop reading, wanted to see what would happen, next, was so fascinated and terrified at the same time. I was sad, angry, emotional, rooting for these girls and for it to end on a happy note, as well. Honestly, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read and I know it’ll stay with me for a long, long time.
Just read You Could Be So Pretty. It’s a must-read, should be required reading kind of YA dystopia, where everything echoes so terrifyingly what we’re living, as well. Just read it, please. You won’t regret it.

A vitally important novel. I haven't stopped thinking about this book since I finished it. It was difficult to read in places due to the subject, but so worth it. Everyone should read You Could Be So Pretty and I've been recommending it non stop.

Holly Bourne is one of those writers whose books I will pick up without reading anything about them. I trust her as an author and I like to go into her stories without any preconceived ideas. And wow, what a read. You Could Be So Pretty is a powerful dystopian exploration of what it is like to be a teenage girl in modern society.

Looking at several aspects of being a teenager - academic expectations, beauty expectations, the control of social media and the power of 'likes', how information about sex is consumed. All of this whilst packaging it within a patriarchal society. It is a dystopian novel but as someone who works with teenagers I can also see how alarmingly accurate this dystopian world is.

You Could Be So Pretty is a perfect gateway novel to more adult texts such as The Handmaid's Tail and Vox. It will be a book I demand our school library buys and I will make sure it gets into the hands of our teenagers. It is a must read.

You Could Be So Pretty by Holly Bourne is available now.

For more information regarding Holly Bourne (@holly_bourneYA) please visit www.hollybourne.co.uk.

For more information regarding Usborne Publishing (@Usborne) please visit their Twitter page.

I raced through this compelling, thought-provoking modern fable. Yes, it is a tough read because it makes us face the realities of life growing up female in 2o23 but it is so powerful and necessary. This is the best Holly Bourne yet! I loved it..

When I requested this on NetGalley I did not realise that it was a YA novel and it did put me off but as soon as I started reading the novel I just loved it.

The book is set in a dystopian era and it is super interesting. The main characters Joni and Belle were brilliantly intertwined and a delight to read about. Two very different young women, living in a really unusual time but actually it felt quite relevant to how things are nowadays - all about the looks of people and being a certain way (which I hate).

Great for young readers and older, like myself. A great story by Holly Bourne that will be appreciated by many.

Thanks to Netgalley, Holly Bourne and the publishers for allowing me ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

As someone who DNFed The Handmaids Tale I perhaps shouldn’t be surprised that this one wasn’t for me. I have loved Holly Bourne’s writing in the past and her style works really well to bring a classic dystopian novel to younger readers but I found it a bit too stilted to make for an enjoyable read (this was something that I also didn’t like about The Handmaids Tale).

Despite me not personally enjoying the read it’s still one I’d recommend as it’s an important story, and one I’m sure others would love to experience it (no matter how awful society is). Holly Bourne is someone I’ll always look to for YA reads regardless so I can’t wait to hear what she concocts next.

Really good. I really enjoyed the way it co sidered representation of women. I would really recommend this book

Rarely has a book given me so many mixed feelings as this one did. I'm still not 100% sure on my rating because I truly cannot decide how much I liked this book.

My first impressions weren't great. You Could Be So Pretty felt dated and juvenile, calling to mind the kind of YA dystopias we saw everywhere in the early 2010s. The dystopian aspect featured the use of jarringly generic words like 'vanilla' to mean virgin, 'Invisibles' to mean older women supposedly past their prime and 'varnish' for Photoshop. Definitely not what I would have expected from Bourne.

It also gets very repetitive around the middle. A big chunk of the book is about Joni trying to convert Belle, and Belle questioning whether the Doctrine is really right, and this goes back and forth for a while, dragging the story out without going anywhere.

But, more than this, I had a massive question in my head for this entire book, one preventing me from fully accepting the premise and becoming immersed in it, and that question was finally answered by the last chapter... in a way I did not find wholly satisfying. I'll keep this vague to avoid spoilers, but my question was basically: pretty much everything that happens in this book happens in our world, so why stick in these new terms and pretend it's a dystopia?

Perhaps if you are a very young person or someone who has never really considered how unfair and stupid society is for women, that question won't be in your head this whole book and the last chapter will have the impact it's supposed to.

Looking back over the book I appreciate it a lot more than I did while reading it, which was a mostly confusing and frustrating experience. I think this book is very important for those who aren't well-versed in feminism and feminist-lit, and I'm sure there's a huge audience among young girls and-- one can dream --young boys. Still, I can't rate it any higher as that wouldn't reflect my experience with it.

Unfortunately I did not finish this book. I find the idea of the book interesting but the story did not flow. There was a lot of background information about the dystopian world the Author was creating. If it had been there it might have helped the story. Having experiences like "The Look", "Body Prayer", "Body Grooming", "Masking" made it confusing. Disappointing.

I have very conflicting views by the end of this book and so I'm going to sort them into positives and negatives.

Positives:
It is a close take on today's beauty and misogynistic narratives
I liked the dual POV with one 'pretty' and one 'objectionable'
The adults were mainly trash, nothing to like, nothing to admire (some kudos to Joni's mother as an exception).
The smut (p*orn) was hideously believeable (violent to women and very Tate-narrative).

Negatives:
As a dystopian world it seemed initally a great concept but it lost tangibility about half way through for me because this was a world without one man who could be seen to have any scrap of integrity. I found that totally unbelievable and as someone who is wholly feminist, has read a lot of theory and lives what I believe, I couldn't stand the lack of even a little balance. I needed one good man, one.
In addition, everything I know as an academic about bonding and attachment of a parent to a child, these fathers were totally unbelievable. The author created a convenient narrative about men in this dystopian world but it lacked balance and credibility.
(view spoiler).

I left the book feeling somewhat unsatisfied but appreciating the spotlight on some of the themes.

2.75 stars rounded up.

Thank you to Usb0urne for the review copy.

Thanks NetGalley & Usborne Publishing for the ARC in exchange of an honest review.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into this book. I really tried hard, but the characters failed to grab me. I was unable to make sense of all the 'Doctrine' related coded words. They all sounded so cryptic & the worse thing is that the author just assumed we would implicitly understand what she is trying to say with words like "The Look", "Body Prayer", "Body Grooming", "Masking" & it was simply impossible to keep going without a context or even an introduction to the dystopian world the author was trying to build.

I really wish the author gave us a nice introduction into these concepts she is trying to talk about, a glossary for all these terms that would be used later in the book & did a better job a gradual world building rather than assuming we are all very well acquainted in that world.

Sorry to say, I had a lot of expectation as I went into the book, which looked & sounded so interesting, but all my above points were just deal breakers.

I had to discontinue before I reached 10%.

Upsetting but empowering YA for fans of Atwood/O'Neill.

Good lord, I was riled reading this!

We've seen worlds like this before, indeed our own parallels it only too well. But here the Bad Times are over, equality has been achieved, and the Doctrine 'advises' girls and women on their choices: to be as Pretty as possible, to take male attention as a compliment, to portray perfection.... or face being called an Objectionable. Or later in life if signs of aging dare show themselves - an Invisible.

Like a Black Mirror episode, Belle is intent on retaining her top spot as prettiest girl at school, through daily Rankings, three-hour Masking sessions and expensive Looks. But when a man tries to abduct her on the way to school and she doesn't feel flattered, fellow schoolmate Joni helps her escape (on tottering heels) and the two are thrown together in all their chalk-and-cheese glory.

With one mother hiding her aging self from a mostly-absent husband, and the other revelling in her post-absconding abusive husband's, the two girls and their backgrounds may be at odds, but they are competing for the same Educational opportunities.

This world is absolutely horrific. It doesn't feel so far from the one we find ourselves in. The attitudes towards women are repulsive, the talk of Smut (read that for 'porn') is both timely and very worrying.

While I loved the main twosome's two-handed narration, I found near the end I wanted to have heard more from some of the minor characters who didn't really get a chance to shine - Vanessa, a Pretty who has her own issues with the Doctrine due to her race. And Joni's friends also felt a little too background.

Couldn't stop myself reading this. Definitely a perfect choice for teens who need to consider their own attitudes to beauty, compliance, education and sex. And I mean boys AND girls here. If this leads readers to Uglies, Only Ever Yours, The Handmaid's Tale and the huge range of dystopia feminist literature out there, so much the better.

I've read several Holly Bourne novels now, this one felt personal and very heartfelt. Powerful stuff.

For ages 14 and above.

With thanks to Netgalley and Usborne for providing a sample reading copy.

Book Review 📚
You Could Be So Pretty by Holly Bourne - 4.5/5 ⭐

Ok get ready for all the emotions in this one. They're not a slap in the face kind of emotions, but when reading you really understand the deeper tones in this writing. It was so thoughtfully done and I loved it.

It's a dystopian YA but it's so much like the world we live in right now, it's scary. YA? No, everyone should read this book and have an insight into exactly the world we will be in soon enough. It's seriously thought provoking and really opens your eyes, so it needs to be talked about ALL THE TIME.

There's not much else I can say about this book except - it's not only phenomenal but Bourne is an incredibly talented writer and I'd loved to see more like this from her.

Thank you to NetGalley and Usborne Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC - this is an HONEST review from my own personal opinion.

You could be so pretty is a much needed YA dystopian story of the pressures that society and the beauty industry subjects women to.
Unfortunately I’m finding it hard to rate this as highly as so many others have, while I agree with most of the points made I feel that this didn’t necessarily hold up to scrutiny. The characters feel very one dimensional and their issues seem very black and white. I’m a little confused to the age that this is marketed towards, it reads quite young but some of the themes and content are clearly only appropriate for older teenagers. I am not the target audience for this genre but I do work with teens and I feel that they could cope with a little more nuance in the themes.
In spite of this I do feel that this is a very relevant book and is a good starting place for some of the deeper conversations needed.
Thanks to Usborne Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this thought provoking book

Holly Bourne is a go-to author for me and You Could Be So Pretty did not disappoint!
The concept of this book was so interesting and thought provoking, I really enjoyed it.
4 stars.

I was initially drawn to Bourne's previous works despite being someone who typically writes for the young adult genre, and have since become a devoted reader, always eager to pick up her latest releases. Although I was a bit hesitant about the inclusion of fantasy elements in her newest work, I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging it was!

While there are certainly futuristic elements in the story, I found that it also spoke to present-day issues, particularly surrounding the pressure young women face to achieve perfection and the extreme measures some may take to attain it. Bourne has a talent for addressing significant topics that others may shy away from, and she does so with professionalism, resulting in informative and thought-provoking reads. Additionally, the fact that many readers can relate to these issues only adds to the story's impact. This release does not differ.

I devoured this book within 24 hours; it's a fast-paced, easy-to-follow read that I believe would be a great addition to secondary school libraries. It would also make for an excellent book club pick, as there's plenty to discuss.

"You Could Be So Pretty" is set to be released on 28/09/2023, and I have no doubt it will be a hit. Don't hesitate to order your copy now!

This book is YA dystopian fiction, but perfectly shines a light on what it is to be a women in our society. We follow both Belle & Joni as they go through their high school senior year and whilst they appear total opposites with very different experiences, they are brought together through a mutual opportunity they both want to secure.
Both girls are very strong, relatable and charismatic and I loved watching the story unfold from both of their perspectives. I also appreciated how the tone of language used felt realistic to the girls, not overly immature but not too adult either.

The author so perfectly creates a dystopian story which scarily feels so real (as essentially, it is!) and I feel this is going to be a very important book for years to come. It’s release feels incredibly timely, with all that is currently happening …

Who should read this? Everyone.
This book not only deserves to be read, it needs to be read!

5⭐️

A thought provoking story that seems to some extent scary and even scarier when you begin to realise it isn’t so far from the truth for some people. Differ families have different values and it can be difficult for one group to identify or sympathise with the other.