A Beautiful, Terrible Thing

LoveReading4Kids Says

Miranda Moore’s A Beautiful, Terrible Thing is devastatingly impactful as it shares a story of beautiful life-changing first love and the ravaging emotional dilemmas that come in the wake of terrible loss.  

Nathan is smitten when he first see Cara in a café. Shattered by causing the death of a boy after running a red light and fiddling with his phone, her “fresh natural look” and “easy posture” immediately make him “feel a kilo lighter”. In the same moment, while struck down by grief at losing her little brother, Cara is struck by Nathan’s “deep and very, very sexy” voice and “ocean-blue eyes”. And so, a beautiful connection begins. At the same time, both teenagers are harbouring painful secrets they don’t want to disclose. In Nathan’s words, their first meeting meant, “No baggage. No history. Just easy chat”, and their relationship escalates quickly to the wondrous ache of love.

While readers are drawn to join the dots early, tension simmers almost unbearably in the build-up to the couple discovering their tragic connection. Smart pacing means waiting with bated breath to discover their respective reactions, and being held captive by Moore’s incisive descriptions of grief and the weight of culpability.

Thought-provoking in the way it compels readers to question how they and their loved ones might react in either of the protagonists’ situations, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing is a potent exploration of grief and atonement, and love in all its complex forms. And, through its darkness, the story shines with hope-giving truths: “You couldn’t cling for ever to a good past, to a former you. At some point, you had to accept your new reality, embrace it, and start living again”.

Joanne Owen

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