A New Kind of Beautiful (Suzy Zail, Walker Books)

In Suzy Zail’s A New Kind of Beautiful, 16-year-old Paige Wilding has her future mapped out: win the coveted school art prize, graduate at the top of her class and move to New York City to study art. But when she is diagnosed with Stargardt disease – a rare, inherited eye condition that causes progressive damage – the perfect life she has imagined falls away. Paige vows to overhaul her life and commits to “live louder, live wilder, and paint like her life depends on it”. Her best friend, Jazz, decides to help Paige cram a lifetime of colour into a single year, launching social media accounts that attract the attention of the most popular girls in school. But, even as Paige gains popularity, her vision is swiftly worsening, and so is her sense of self and her faith in the future.

Zail’s novels, including I Am Change, Alexander Altmann and Inkflower, are known to shine a light on social justice while capturing the vicissitudes of adolescence. The complexities of Paige’s myriad and often conflicting emotions are explored with depth and nuance, as are those of her parents, who hold themselves responsible for her disease. Most notably, A New Kind of Beautiful offers an impressively in-depth exploration of the psyche of a young woman navigating some typical challenges of one’s teenage years, compounded by the added pressure of coming to terms with a fundamentally life-altering medical condition. The novel will appeal to readers of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Heidi Maier has a PhD in women’s studies and literature. She has been an arts and literary writer and reviewer for more than 20 years. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Friday Unlocked reviews Reviews