Monstrous Beauty: Book summary and reviews of Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

Monstrous Beauty Summary

Fierce, seductive mermaid Syrenka falls in love with Ezra, a young naturalist. When she abandons her life underwater for a chance at happiness on land, she is unaware that this decision comes with horrific and deadly consequences. Almost one hundred forty years later, seventeen-year-old Hester meets a mysterious stranger named Ezra and feels overwhelmingly, inexplicably drawn to him. For generations, love has resulted in death for the women in her family. Is it an undiagnosed genetic defect ... or a curse? With Ezra's help, Hester investigates her family's strange, sad history. The answers she seeks are waiting in the graveyard, the crypt, and at the bottom of the ocean - but powerful forces will do anything to keep her from uncovering her connection to Syrenka and to the tragedy of so long ago.

Monstrous Beauty Reviews

"Dilemmas and choices are complex, providing much food for thought. Not so much romance as suspense, this stylish fantasy mesmerizes." - Kirkus Reviews

"[One of] of the most compelling (and gory) mermaid offerings....Elizabeth Fama's Monstrous Beauty...is by far the most sophisticated but also the most mature in its treatment of the consuming loves and violent deaths wrought by mer-folk." Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal

"The alternating narrative device can make for stutters in the momentum, and there are stretches ... where the plot trudges. The horror and humanity are adroitly handled, however, and Fama never lapses into cliché." - Publishers Weekly

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Elizabeth Fama is the author of Overboard, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, which appeared on five state lists. She lives with her family in Chicago, Illinois.