Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino Short Review

The premise of the book

(No danger here, spoiler-free zone.)

1977, September. Northeast Philadelphia Regional. Her name is Adina and she is just about to be born. Her mother’s name is Térèse and she is on the verge of dying. At the same moment Voyager 1 is launched in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on its lonely journey through the cosmos. 

Adina is born pre-maturely, a little bean, a little alien.

She knows from a very young age, that she is not human. She talks with her superiors through a decommissioned fax machine, and reports on her human observations. This relation will accompany through her childhood, teenage and adult years. Born to Italian immigrant parents, to a single mom who is trying her hardest to put her in private schools, where social and racial inequity and institutional biases are regular experiences for her. 

Adina wants to connect to people, including her mom or her best friend, but at the same time she is also an alien, a remote individual who prefers to be alone.

The original synapsis can be found here, at the publisher’s website. Date of Publish: 27 March 2025.

You can also purchase the e-books via Kobo US**, Bookshop US* and Kobo Canada** or any other retailer you usually use. For physical copies see, Bookshop US** and Bookshop UK**. 

A Calling that is impossible to refuse or even mute

(SPOILER ALERT!!)

Mother-daughter relationship, friendships across all the spectrum, alienation, a sense of belonging and connectedness, father figure and her calling to be a writer. 

If I could list all the things that made this book a 5-star emotional rollercoaster for me, I would probably list the above.

On a deeper level, the reason why I gave 5-stars was because I felt incredibly related and connected to Adina. Maybe not in the sense of being an Italian immigrant in the US, although I am a Hungarian in the UK, but more in her way-of-being. Su forma de ser, as the Spanish would say. Especially her experiences in elementary school and high school were eerily familiar.

Therefore, it was hard to look at this book from an unbiased point of view, as it felt that Beautyland was written by someone who belongs to the same ‘species’ as me. 

Overall

Beautyland is 336 pages long, a perfectly sized novel with an easy-reading experience. We could say that the novel is mainly character-focused rather than plot focused, but it would sound the same if I was to write about my life experiences or anyone’s for that matter. I have found the novel medium-paced with not one boring page. The constant mystery about Adina’s alien origins and the urge to uncover her life alongside her is what makes this novel a page-turner without an emphasis on a plot-driven nature. 

I would like to praise the inner monologues of Adina and the narrator, which has been clearly distinguished and highlighted by the tilted text in the novel. Each paragraph could give hours of material for conversations for a book club. Hence, I think, Beautyland is an excellent choice for anyone who has a book or any form of social club. From the mother’s role as the ‘SHE’ in her daughter’s life through ‘Why do teachers think their average student cheats when they write an excellent test’ all the way down to ‘Carl Sagan as father figure’. And this is barely scratching the surface. 

The book was inspirational on a level that I can only feel with female writers. A beautiful, fragile thread of connectedness that I cherish and hold close to my heart. I loved each and every one of the characters, which is a rare thing to encounter and not necessarily what authors usually aim for. 

Writer as a Vocation

There is a part in the book where a character says to Adina that even though she would like to connect to other people, there is a bigger part in her that just wants to be alone. I felt this very close to my way of being as well. Although, I think maybe, just maybe, there are things to write about. To create. And that is a solitary pull of the Universe. And maybe, there are people who feel more strongly more aggressively this connection than others. A calling that is impossible to refuse or even mute. 

There is comfort. There is connectedness and relation and belonging through the pages, through Adina. And I cherish it and celebrate it. I keep this fluttering being close to my heart. So I won’t forget this feeling when it’s my time to start to connect. 

A huge thank you to @PNagi from Vintage, Penguin for my Netgalley review copy.