Book Review: Beautiful Pain by Joanna Mazurikiewicz
December 07, 2015
My decisions were
always wrong. I needed to get away from London, I wanted to start from scratch
in Belfast, escape from the life that I didn’t want.
Working for Probation Service for the whole summer was going to give me the experience that I needed. I always felt much better when I could help people whose lives were shattered.
My parents told me that I wasn't ready and I wouldn't make it through but I was determined to show them that the past was behind me.
I had three months to forget about my bad memories, about the pain and my scars. Then I run straight into him, throwing it all to the wind, falling into a trap of love and lust.
Harry O’Donaghue was a local offender. At our first meeting he gave me the impression that he didn’t care about what I had to say and didn’t want to be evaluated by a stupid young girl like me.
Harry wasn’t an easy subject, either when it came to straight forward conversation about his future or about the crimes that he had committed.
Harry had a secret and everything suddenly became complicated. He was bad to be around, bad for me in every respect, but I still allowed him take me to paradise…
Working for Probation Service for the whole summer was going to give me the experience that I needed. I always felt much better when I could help people whose lives were shattered.
My parents told me that I wasn't ready and I wouldn't make it through but I was determined to show them that the past was behind me.
I had three months to forget about my bad memories, about the pain and my scars. Then I run straight into him, throwing it all to the wind, falling into a trap of love and lust.
Harry O’Donaghue was a local offender. At our first meeting he gave me the impression that he didn’t care about what I had to say and didn’t want to be evaluated by a stupid young girl like me.
Harry wasn’t an easy subject, either when it came to straight forward conversation about his future or about the crimes that he had committed.
Harry had a secret and everything suddenly became complicated. He was bad to be around, bad for me in every respect, but I still allowed him take me to paradise…
Beautiful Pain by
Joanna Mazurikiewicz is a story about a woman who has struggled with anxiety
and the feeling of imperfection since she was sixteen-years-old. That was when
her life fell apart and she turned to self-harm to feel peace and a loosening
of her perpetual anxiety.
Sophia has always been a good and obedient daughter, but it
is the summer before her final year of university, and she’s decided that she
doesn’t want to do what her parents’ want her to do. Rejecting her father’s
demand to work at his firm for the summer, Sophia finds herself a three-month
posting in Belfast’s Probationary Services—giving her the time to gain her
confidence without her parents’ breathing down her neck.
On her first day of shadowing a work colleague, Sophia meets
Harry—a bad-boy with a soft Irish lilt to his voice that instantly takes a
disliking to Sophia. The animosity between them is palpable, and Sophie regrets
the day that she’ll have to have him in her case load. But what Sophia doesn’t
know is that Harry doesn’t dislike her; he is instantly attracted to her.
The more closely Sophia works with Harry, the more she gets
to know him, and the more she realizes that being in his company and having his
touch calms her frayed nerves and helps to keep her buoyant against the tide of
anxiety that sometimes creeps up on her expectantly.
Knowing that he’s bad for her, Sophia’s opinion is cemented
when she sees Harry involved in a drug deal. Torn between wanting him and doing
the right thing, Harry convinces her to get to know him a little better so she
can understand him and why he’s doing what he’s doing.
Their relationship blooms and flourishes with Sophia letting
Harry know more and more about her dark and haunted past. She lets him see her
scars after a horrific accident threatens to tear them apart, and it’s this
honesty and baring of her soul that lets her see just how much Harry means to
her.
A cruel twist of fate separates them, and despite Sophia’s
best efforts to protect Harry and his family, she can see no way out of the
situation. She chooses to protect him and sacrifice her own happiness until a
solution she didn’t think was possible presents itself.
I found myself unable to put this book down despite the
grammatical and spelling inconsistencies. I had a connection with Sophia and
her determination to live her life the way she wants to. Sophia and Harry’s
relationship may have started off rocky, but the chemistry between them is
real. I liked the fact that Sophia had integrity and thought about the
repercussions of her and Harry’s relationship, knowing that her whole career
would be jeopardized should they ever be found out. And even then, she’s
willing to give it all up because of how Harry makes her feel: calm and in
control.
I’m giving this book three stars as the stilted language and
lack of contraction is speech detracted from the writing style. And it was this
underdeveloped writing style that stopped me from enjoying it more. The plot,
storyline and pacing was great; it was just the delivery that let it down. I
would have also liked to have seen some clearer distinctions between the
present and flashbacks Sophia had about her past. Without a change in font or
tense, I found it difficult to follow the storyline in some places.
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