A beautiful, terrible thing by Miranda Moore
Are the best love stories impossible?
When Nathan meets Cara, sparks fly. Her smile lights him up, and he falls for her fast. Being with her is like taking a deep breath, after the terrible thing that happened three months ago.
Cara feels the same. And this joy is a gift – because her life is shattered, too. Nathan feels like a new start.
But they’re both hiding a secret. And the secrets intertwine in a way neither of them could imagine.
This book has a really interesting plot. It really shows how the relationship of love and family clash together. It feels weird when you read this book, I feel happy for Cara and Nathan and I also feel negative feelings towards the end when Cara knows everything. When I was starting, I was told the plot and I was really curious as to how it would end. And the ending really surprised me. I really like this book and I really recommend it to other people. Towards the subject of justice, I really feel like that despite being the main character, Nathan should be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison. He was dangerously driving and his dangerous actions caused a death of young boy. This caused tremendous pain for the boy’s family. Only serving 3 years for a death of a boy is crazy. He definitely deserved more than three years. This book made me think about justice, could young age really be a thing that could help you escape consequences?
I really enjoyed the SSBA-shortlisted book! The story follows Nathan and Cara, who both have massive secrets. When they meet, they instantly click, but their pasts make everything complicated. The plot is like a rollercoaster with huge twists. Nathan and Cara felt like real people, and the writing is so fast-paced that the cliffhangers kept me reading late into the night. It deals with some pretty sad, serious themes like loss and forgiveness, but it still leaves you feeling hopeful. I really like this YA romance and I highly recommend it to anyone in Year 8 and above who loves a good mystery and drama.
I liked this book and I think it’s a very interesting YA romance. It has serious themes of sadness, loss, and forgiveness, which gives it a unique tone to the story. My favourite character was Nathan because he actually felt like someone in real life and you could really see how conflicted and guilty he is. I also like how Nathan and Cara keep secrets from each other and it makes the romance part of the book more interesting and different to other romances. I would recommend this book to people who like romance stories or people who like drama.
I liked this novel because it has two points of view of the same story, that made it really interesting, especially when it is about something as traumatic as the accident and as heart-breaking as a totally doomed love story. My favourite character was Cara because, even though she hated Nathan for the crash, she also couldn’t stop loving him as someone who also brought her freedom from the tragedy. I didn’t like the ending because they won’t be together, I wanted them to find each other again after his time in jail.