Losing Beauty by Johanna Garth

I've wanted to read this book for over a year now. Losing Beauty was on my Summer Reading List along with some other books, and I finally found time to get to it. And it was certainly worth the wait.


Persey is a girl who inspires confidences. When people look into her eyes they find themselves telling her everything - EVERYTHING - about themselves. This attracts several boys, primarily Aaron, who wants to put aside his high-school jock image and protect her.


Persey and Aaron get married and move to the city. There she meets Daniel Hartnett, who has a talent of his own. He knows the truth about people before they say a word to him, to the point that he can make any woman fall in love with him.


Of course, when Daniel meets Persey he finds that she is a complete surprise. He, like the others, falls in love with her.


This plot in the hands of a lesser writer could fall apart. What makes the book stand is the characters. Persey is beautiful, but she is also real. I liked her. She is honest and lacks confidence, and this makes her story all the more compelling.

Johanna Garth

And it is the same with the men she meets. Aaron is not a cardboard cutout high school athlete; Garth breathes life into him as well so he becomes a living, breathing person that I cared about.


As handsome and attractive as Daniel is, he is also human. The relationship between him and the married Persey is handled very delicately.


But the biggest tour de force is Haden, who is actually the lord of the underworld. He is ruthless, and he inhabits several different human bodies - and yet I even cared about what happened to him. Again, this tie-in with mythology could be hokey or forced with a lesser writer, but Garth handles it really well.


The thing is, Garth has discovered the secret of compelling writing. As I read Losing Beauty, I wanted to find out what what would happen next. I kept at the book one night until two AM, and I like my sleep.


I highly recommend this book for a great beach read.