A summary of This Beautiful Life makes it sound like a
ripped-from-the-headlines movie-of-the-week (or maybe like a tawdry daytime
talk show episode). Fifteen-year-old Jake receives a pornographic email from a
younger classmate, forwards it to his friends, and his life and his family
member’s lives fall apart. It’s a novel
about rich people in private school in New York City, it’s a novel about
disaffected teenagers, and it’s a novel about the midlife crises of the
parents. So why did this particular
story work for me? Schulman tells the
story from the perspectives of the parents, their son, and the young girl at
the center of the scandal, and she gets their voices down. They are all imperfect, lonely people.
Why have I never read a book by Helen Schulman before? I gobbled this one up in just over a
day. Her writing is so smart, the
characters are so achingly and painfully real:
it’s strange to say that it was a delight to read this book about a
family falling apart during the teenage son’s sexting scandal, but it really
was a great read.
THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Helen Schulman
Publisher: Harper
Publication date: August 2, 2011
Source: library
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