3/5 stars

What's it about? Adina Giorno is an alien, sent to experience life on Earth and fax everything she learns to her superiors. Along with that mission comes the mystery and joy of a human existence. A page-turner that entertains to the end.

How’d I find it? I read Bertino’s short story collection Exit Zero, and a friend recommended I try this next.

Who will enjoy this book? Fans of the excellent It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken should get a kick out of Beautyland, as will most readers of popular fiction.

What stood out? Adina provides a charming point of view for the duration of this novel, which marvels at human life on Earth in all its strangeness. Several passages made me chuckle, and the specificity with which Adina’s Gen X childhood is rendered makes the world perfectly engrossing. I heightened the reading experience by bringing this book with me on a trip to New York and Philadelphia, the two cities where the action is set.

Which line made me feel something? Some of Adina’s observations are zingers. “Adulthood seems like a yearslong equation to beat traffic.” “When it was time to decide the official food of movie-watching, human beings did not go for Fig Newtons or caramel, foods that are silent, but popcorn, the loudest sound on Earth.”