A Broken Kind of Beautiful Book Review

SUMMARY:  Sometimes everything you ever learned about yourself is wrong.
     Fashion is a fickle industry, a frightening fact for twenty-four-year-old model Ivy Clark.  Ten years in and she's learned a sacred truth - appearance is everything.  Nobody cares about her broken past as long as she looks beautiful for the camera.  This is the only life Ivy knows - so when it starts to unravel, she'll do anything to hold on.  Even if that means moving to the quaint island town of Greenbrier, South Carolina, to be the new face of her stepmother's bridal wear line - an irony too rich for words, since Ivy is far from the pure bride in white.
     If only her tenuous future didn't rest in the hands of Davis Knight, her mysterious photographer.  Not only did he walk away from the kind of success Ivy longs for to work maintenance at a local church, he treats her differently than any man ever has.  Somehow, Davis sees through the facade she works so hard to maintain.  In fact, it seems that everyone Ivy comes across in Greenbrier challenges what she has come to believe about beauty and worth.  Is it possible that God sees her - a woman stained and broken by the world - yet want her still?

REVIEW:  This book was well written.  It was hard to read at times because I grieved for the difficult childhood Ivy had, the complete rejection of her father and having to deal with the idea of everything she has ever known coming to an end because she is almost twenty-five, ancient in modeling years. But, I loved how others in her life who had faced or were facing very difficult situations trusted God to finish the good work He had started in their lives.  They all realized that God was using their brokenness to bring them closer to Him and to use them in bigger ways than they could imagine.  They looked beyond Ivy's outward appearance and spoke into her heart, helping her in her time of brokenness to find complete healing.  I loved this book and look forward to reading more from this author.

This book was provided by Waterbrook Multnomah for review without compensation.

Christy Award-finalist and Carol winner, Katie Ganshert is the author of Wildflowers from Winter and Wishing on Willows.  She lives in Iowa with her husband and their son.  When she's not busy writing or playing or reading or snuggling, she is obsessing over the paperwork and the waiting that comes with adoption.