Everything Beautiful is not Ruined by Danielle Younge-Ullman

Pages: 361

Intended Audience: Mature Teens

Genre: Contemporary

Notes for Parents: Contains mild language and mature scenes.

The Back Cover

Then: Ingrid traveled all over Europe with her opera star mother, Margot-Sophia. Life was beautiful and bright, and every day soared with music.
Now: Ingrid is on a summertime wilderness survival trek for at-risk teens: addicts, runaways, and her. She’s fighting to survive crushing humiliations, physical challenges that push her to her limits, and mind games that threaten to break her. Ingrid is never going to make it through this summer if she can’t figure out why she’s here…and why the music really stopped.

What the cover doesn’t tell you:

This is a CBC Best Book of 2017; it was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award; and shortlisted for the White Pine Award.

What’s good?

Using a combination of narration and letter-writing, Ingrid recounts her less-than-ideal adventures on a wilderness trek for at-risk teens. In flashbacks, she slowly reveals what led up to her needing to join the wilderness survival group. Sarcastic humor infused with anger and grief gives life to the storytelling. The supporting characters are well-developed and have interesting stories of their own. The pace is good and the plot is intricate but easy to understand. The ending was unexpected and well-done.

Best Part: The dead mosquito count.

What isn’t good?

There’s a lot of telling rather than showing. It could have used a bit more dialogue and lot less description. I was bothered by the part where Ingrid is basically forced to share a tent with two boys and the adults had no qualms with Peace’s bizarre behavior. The romance was dull.

Worst part: Nothing was terrible.

Recommendation ☺☺☺☺ (4/5)

This was an excellent story, told with humor and grace, about dealing with mental illness. While it wasn’t wholly unique, there was a rare quality about it that makes it stand out from the multitude of other “my mom is depressed” novels. There were as many heartwarming moments as there were heartbreaking ones. Definitely recommended.

Younge-Ullman, Danielle. Everything Beautiful is not Ruined. Toronto: Razorbill Canada, 2018.