The Pretty One by Cheryl Klam

This book is one of the first few that I have read back when I was 13. Probably read this three to four times already and it's just what someone might need from time to time. A flawless ugly duckling Cinderella dream. Though this one, for teens, is closer to home.

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Megan Fletcher, a sixteen-year-old Ugly-Betty-looking girl who goes to Chesapeake School of the Arts has secretly always wanted to be a theater actress. But with her sister Lucy's excessive beauty, popularity and undeniable talent, Megan seems to be just a spec of dirt in the CSPA student body's metaphorical windshield.

Along with her best friend Simon, being just techies and having their constant visit to Spoons for an iced mocha cappuccino is what she thinks a satisfactory life can mean.

Simon and Megan was persuaded by Lucy to go to the fall festival (CSPA's version of prom) and double date with her and her boyfriend at the time.

In the fall festival, Megan excuses herself from Simon to go to the comfort room. While she's inside the stall, she hears two girls mocking and ridiculing her choice of outfit and her overall unattractive appearance. She discovers that one of the girls was her sister Lucy.

She runs outside as fast as she could and Lucy tries to catch up. Megan gets hit by a running vehicle on the street.

She miraculously survives the accident but the injuries were so bad, a major surgery was needed. After a year of recovery, she goes back to school anew. With a maybe even prettier face than Lucy's and a slimmer physique, all the boys suddenly turn their heads her way.

Her dream-boy Drew Reynolds is directing and acting in a play he wrote himself and she was asked to audition. Lucy wants both the role and the director as well.

Megan gets the part and Lucy goes cuckoo. Will Megan get her dream-boy? And Simon is falling in love with her, how is she going to turn him down? Will she and Lucy be okay again?

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I like the subtle kind of depth this book offers to the readers. Issues about physical appearance, plastic surgery, dealing with a difficult set of family, the theater, rejection and love are the many things you'll encounter here.

It's almost as if it didn't want me to have the story the way I wanted it. The author chose to stick with reality. It was bittersweet, the way things had to be. 

Drew admitting he didn't think he'd fall in love with her if she wasn't pretty but that he was genuinely in love with her anyway (and he thinks that's what matters) was human. Simon's feelings being disregarded and judged at times was harsh. He is no exception to the big question (whether he'd fall in love with Megan if she wasn't pretty). But in his defense, he was the one who was there since the beginning.

And Lucy, the way she wanted Megan to have a taste of how it is to be pretty but not wanting her sister to have it the way she has it is understandable but wrong.

This is more than an okay book! I hope they make this into a film. It deserves to be.


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