Review: This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman

Title: This Beautiful Life

Author: Helen Schulman

Genre/Audience: Contemporary fiction, adult

Publication: 2011

Source: Library

Summary: The Bergamot family, Richard, Lizzie and their two children, 15 year old Jake, and precocious six year old Coco, adopted from China, have just moved to New York City from a quiet life in small-town Ithaca, New York. Richard is a big shot college administrator, meanwhile, Liz stays home with the kids. Life is quiet, with the kids at their elite private school, until one night at a party, everything changes. Jake tells an eighth grader, Daisy, she is too young for him. To try and prove him wrong, she e-mails him a pornographic video of herself the next day, which Jake innocently forwards to a friend. From there, it spirals out of control as the video goes viral. Jake finds himself in serious trouble while the whole family falls apart.

My Thoughts: I was extremely excited to read this book because it sounded a lot like one of my favorite reads of 2011, Exposure, by Therese Fowler. While it was pretty well written, the story was underwhelming for me. It certainly wasn't bad but it was not great and I was anticipating something extraordinary. I felt that it could have been a lot more exciting, and that it moved pretty slowly. However, the writing was excellent, so props for that.

The story is timely and realistic, but it didn't draw me in. I thought it was going to center around the video incident, and how it affected the families of those involved, but it didn't seem to be that way for me. It appears to from the outset, but I think a lot of the problems weren't really linked to the video incident as intended. The Bergamot's fell apart, with Richard and Liz constantly fighting and Jake getting suspended, but I feel like the incident wasn't the cause of the problem. Yes, it was why Jake got into trouble, but I feel like the marriage was crumbling because of the move to the city and the roles Liz and Richard found themselves in. Both were highly educated with PhDs, and Liz gave up her career in order for Richard to flourish in the city. Furthermore, we never see inside Daisy's head which I feel should certainly have been included. It's almost as if the video incident wasn't even necessary to the story - it's just a story of a family crumbling. That's certainly fine, but the premise made it sound otherwise, so I was disappointed. I wanted to see more about how the video really affected everyone on a more emotional level, especially Daisy. I also wanted to see more from Jake and how he felt. A bright spot of the story, though, was Coco, the six year old daughter adopted from China. Her character is probably the best developed, even though she's a small character. She's very outgoing, funny, and a bit of a wild child.

I couldn't help but compare this story to Exposure the whole time I was reading. If you're looking for a story centered around a scandal of this sort, you need to read Exposure ASAP! I wouldn't say, don't read This Beautiful Life, because it wasn't bad, but I wouldn't highly recommend it either. It's just not very memorable or exciting. 

My Rating: 3/5