A heart wrenching premise and a strong character should make All the Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J Church a moving, emotional read. It is that to an extent. Lily aka Ruby is a sympathetic character, and I want things to work out for her. However, the book corrals the topic into too neat a package. Life, as we know, is not that simple, and I am left wanting something more.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2018/06/all-beautiful-girls.html.

Reviewed for NetGalley

This book was heart breaking but rewarding. I loved this novel so much and would highly recommend it to others.

The characters were realistic and relatable.

Wow! I loved this book and devoured it in two days. This book was so beautifully written. Lily/Ruby captured my heart right away. A young girl trying to come to terms with a set of life circumstances she can't understand was heartbreaking. Seeing her try to follow her dream and escape at the same time was inspiring. She finds love in all the right and wrong places, but learns in the end that the greatest challenge in life is to find and love yourself. I would read this again!!!

I enjoyed this novel very much. Main character was tenacious, interesting and I was invested in her story. Good read!

Curious as to what the life of what a Vegas showgirl would be like in the 60s, I was drawn to this book. The main character, Lily, who later became known as Ruby Wilde, is one of those characters that lives with you even when you aren't reading the book. The book covers many topics such as child abuse, love, and friendship. I would recommend this book to my friends, but it definitely isn't appropriate for my students.

I was given this book for an honest review.

This book was more heart wrenching than I originally thought it would be. Lily is really put through the wringer, both emotionally and physically.

Having lost her parents at a young age doesn't stop Lily. With the help of a mysterious individual she pursues her dream of dance. Leaving the home she was raised in once she's of age, she embarks on the life she knows she's meant to lead. What she doesn't count on is how hard it is going to be to obtain that life.

While on her journey she's offered a different option. She'll still be able to do what she loves, but not in the environment that she has imagined for all her life. While she views it as a form of selling out, those who have become part of her life assure her that its a great opportunity.

A wonderful story that follows each of Lily's decisions and the consequences of those decisions. Beautifully written and thoroughly engrossing.

“When I dance—when I dance, nothing else matters. Everything else disappears. There is only dancing.” That was it. Dancing took her to another world, a world Uncle Miles could not reach. A world where her lost family was a faint shadow, not an omnipresent, weeping wound. When Lily danced, she was not a misfit. She belonged.

Lily Decker was the sole survivor of a car crash that left her with nothing and forced upon her childhood an anguish that was more than any young girl should experience. Sent to live with her aunt who never figured out how to love her and her uncle who loved her in all the wrong ways, Lily’s torment continue well into her teenaged years, leaving scars both physical and emotional.

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Lily created other injuries. She “fell” off of a curb and for good measure bravely struck her ankle three times with the heaviest rock she could find. She knocked her forehead against a doorknob. She burst her lower lip and gave herself a black eye on a rung of the playground ladder. Yet, it wasn’t until Aunt Tate taught Lily how to use a razor blade to scrape hard-water stains from windowpanes that Lily realized she could turn the blade on herself, at last finding blissful release.

Yearning for an escape from the sadness at the loss of her family and the terror at the footsteps approaching her bedroom door each night, Lily first turns to self-mutilation as a way to temper the pain. As she grows from girl to woman, she learns of the physical characteristics she possesses which draws boys and men to her like flies to honey. For the rest of her life she tries to harness that charisma and beauty, to channel her pain into her ability to perform. Her love for dance is what, above all else, allows her to transcend her circumstance and, with eyes on New York and professional dancing, she sets out first to Las Vegas, where she takes the chance to escape and to remake herself in the image of a strong, composed and alluring showgirl.

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Ruby bevel-walked her way onto the stage and smiled. She’d done it. She’d made it. She knew she was jaw-dropping gorgeous, and—at long last—she was precisely where she belonged.

Experiencing for the first time complete control of her sexuality, Lily—now known as Ruby Wild—shines from the stage and entices the men she entertains after the shows knowing she is the gatekeeper to her heart and to her body.

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The nearly anonymous sex was, she thought, about the best thing ever invented. It let her experiment freely. The man—whoever he was—would be gone in a few hours or days, so why not? It let her demand. It helped her drive out the demons Uncle Miles had bred inside her, to make them matter less and less as they were caught in the undertow of other experiences, other men.

When one man in particular stands out above the rest, she takes a true leap of faith and shares with him her past, her troubles and her bruised and broken heart. Will she finally find contentment and the love she so desperately wants and deserves?

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“There must be another way. A better way for you to let this pain fly out of you.” He leaned up on an elbow so that he could see into her face. “You have had no one you can give this pain to? To unburden your heart?” He pressed a hot palm over her breastbone. “Ruby?”

She shook her head no. “I haven’t,” she said, simply, clearly. “Never.”

“Then I am the one,” he said. “I am the one you will give the pain to.”

With care and finesse, Elizabeth J Church pens yet another successful story revolving around the experiences of women—the fragility and resilience of our spirit and the unmatched ability to rise like a phoenix of the ashes of loss, abuse and heartbreak. All The Beautiful Girls may be the fictional story of one women, but there is enough substance here that most will find some commonality between the struggles of Lily/Rudy and themselves.

A fascinating look into a world I knew little about. Well developed characters and beautiful and tragic story

Thanks to NetGalley for the Ecopy for my Kindle.
The book begins with the death of Lilly's parents and sister. She is forced to live with her aunt and uncle which is the beginning of the "downhill" of her life- sexual abuse and animal abuse. Had I know these types of abuses were in the book, I wouldn't have requested it.
I did finish it and Lily's life continues to spiral down, but the ending there's hope and a happier life for her.

TRIGGER WARNING for Child Abuse/Sexual Assault.

I didn't finish this book. I tried to keep going, but I gave up half way through. The scenes with the child abuse and sexual assault were too graphic for me. They were unnecessarily so. There are a multitude of ways to allude to and explain child abuse and sexual assault, but this felt like it was for shock value alone. Then her predator magically stops one day. Really? There are many other issues with the story that I couldn't get past including the Aviator character and the Spanish boyfriend. It was all too ridiculous.

Would recommend but I have many friends who would absolutely hate parts of this book. I think if you are an animal lover - the kind that gets upset at certain facebook posts - you should skip this book, or at least SKIM parts of it. I enjoyed this setting so much, I love when you can get sucked into other decades especially the glitzy glamorous worlds... I feel I have been in a little bit of a slump lately and the fact that it took me awhile to read this book, well... it did not get me out of my slump!!

This novel, set in 60's Vegas, follows the life of Ruby Wilde, a showgirl who's trying to get over her tragic and disturbing childhood. Church does a fantastic job creating this memorable character, and I loved the sprinkling of historic events throughout the book. However, some of the content was difficult to read (definitely some trigger warnings there!), so I wasn't always excited to pick up the book. I would probably give this author another try if she sticks to something in the historical fiction vein.

This is going to be an ideal fit for book clubs and it bridges the gap between "beach read" and great literature with a combination of great storytelling, wonderful writing, and memorable characters. There's a distinct "Daddy Long Legs" vibe throughout that some readers make take issue with but its hard to deny the power of tackling issues like female sexuality at the very beginning of the women's liberation movement. Lily is part little girl lost and part I am woman hear me roar and it works on both levels.

I thought that I didn't like historical fiction as a genre, but I really loved this book. I was hooked from the very beginning. Lily/Ruby is a great character and Church did an excellent job developing her from childhood through adulthood. Church was able to weave a lot of serious topics like heartbreak, abuse, and grief amongst the glitz and glam of the Vegas showgirl world. It doesn't seem like that tapestry should work, but it does. I loved the author's unflinching examination of sexuality, trauma, love, and female empowerment. Lily had so many obstacles in her life and I found myself really wanting to see her success - what a testament to Church that I was so invested in a fictional character! One of my favorite parts was seeing true and strong female friendship amongst Lily/Ruby and her fellow female dancers. Both in books and in life, women's relationships with each other are often portrayed as catty but instead this book celebrated female friendship. I definitely recommend this one and hope my review encourages others to pick it up!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC!

All the Beautiful Girls was a pleasure to read.. It is about a young girl who loses her parents at the age of eight years old and goes to live with her aunt and uncle. This turns out to be a less than desirable situation. After studying dance and appearing in some local programs she decided to go to Las Vegas and get a job dancing.. She had a hard time finding work in the beginning but finally took a job as a showgirl. From that point forward her life drastically changed. I liked the story and the author's description of the Lax Vegas lifestyle is very realistic. I highly recommend this book.

This was an emotional story with some rather disturbing topics central to the storyline. For this reason, it wasn’t my favorite but others will likely enjoy the book and the powerful emotions it invokes.

I really enjoyed reading about the glamorous and not so glamorous sides of Las Vegas in the 60's from a showgirl's perspective. I thought the story was written very well and kept me turning the pages long after I should have turned the light off and gone to bed! I liked the characters in the book though I thought Lily was pretty lucky in-spite of how the book began. I do not think her story would be the same for 90% of the showgirls who lived and worked in Vegas at that time. How she was befriended by so many good people at all turns except for the boyfriend. I was surprised at the choice of "bad guy/boy friend" with so many ready mobsters, gamblers and other shoddy folks available to choose from one of color was chosen instead. Perhaps it was the idealized romanticized, exotic version Lily was attracted to that might not have worked with others in that role ( mobster, gambler, etc). One other issue I had with the set up of the book was her relationship with the Aviator. I think some anger would have been acceptable and seemed out of place not having any. Again, I was able to go with the flow of the book and accept if for what it was and not an agenda I thought it should have. I look forward to more books from this author and thank NetGalley for putting it on my radar.

This is hard for me to rate because I didn't actually finish it. I found the abundance of child molestation details to be too excessive. I've read books with this plot line before but for some reason the way this is wrote just wasn't for me

A riveting look at how experiences in life affect who and what become (for good or bad) if we let them...
I overall had very mixed feelings on this book. Parts I loved and parts I wanted to throw it against the wall. But it kept my interest and kept me wanting to know how life would eventually end up for Lily (Ruby)! The Las Vegas sections were my favorite. I loved all the "insider" information on showgirl life, the good, the bad & the ugly. The costume descriptions were awesome. The down side was the sexual abuse situations in different sections of the book. I always think it's important to know about this ahead of time, so sensitive readers can steer clear, It's always hard to read about, too, for me. Sex is a big theme throughout the book as well. Lots of talk about it. Not overly descriptive but worth noting. I'd give this 3.5 stars overall.

**Many thanks to NetGalley, Elizabeth Church, & Random House Publishing Co-Ballantine for an ARC to read in exchange for an honest review**

When Lily was eight years old, her parents and sister were killed in a car crash. Raised by her strict Aunt and perverted Uncle, she found herself developing a bond with the Aviator, the man who killed her family. The Aviator provides Lily with books, and when he learns that she loves dance, he gifts her a scholarship to the local dance academy. At 18, Lily heads to Las Vegas, where she rebrands herself Ruby Wilde. Reluctant at first, she eventually gives in and takes a job as a topless showgirl.

Lily was very interesting and dynamic character. She really grew and progressed throughout the book. Her struggles to overcome sexual abuse and figure out who she is was very poignant. The author was really good as transitioning throughout time, a feat many just can't do. Overall, highly recommended.