A unique look at the life of Marilyn Monroe. The design of the book adds to the beautiful text from Carole Boston Weatherford.

I could not get this format to download successfully but this looks like a brilliant book which I’m excited to read when it eventually is available to buy.

Wow! I really enjoyed this fictional, but based in fact, verse novel of Marilyn Monroe’s life. It was a quick morning’s read, but I kept jumping to google to search for a mentioned picture or another actor/actress to get more information. The book made me want to watch some of Monroe’s films, some for the first time and other old favorites. Weatherford does a wonderful job building empathy for her protagonist beyond just the Hollywood icon.

Thanks to Candlewick Press for providing a digital ARC of Beauty Mark in exchange for an honest review.

I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not a biographical kinda gal. The only biography I remember reading in its entirety before this is Claudette Colvin's (which if you haven't read about her do it right now). Beauty Mark is the kind of story you can enjoy whether or not you're into biographical style reads or not. You don't even really need to be interested in Marilyn Monroe because while this book is about her, its also about mental health and societal pressures. It takes a larger than life icon and turns her life into a hauntingly relatable read.

This book is short in page count and length. You can probably read it within an hour so I see no reason to not give it a shot.

'Beauty Mark'' is a lovely verse novel about the star we know as Marilyn Monroe. It was well written, and made me respect her a great deal! It was super interesting to read about her life, and her extremely tough childhood. It was quite fascinating actually! However, I feel that I would have preferred it as an actual novel rather than in verse.

Beauty Mark is a fictionalized memoir of Marilyn Monroe. It's a quick read and was informative. I enjoyed the novel-in-verse format and the first-person viewpoint felt new and unique. I think it is an excellent way to introduce younger readers to Marilyn and her mystique and long-lasting legacy.

This book is as beautiful and tragic as the woman it's about. I feel like I have a newfound respect for Marilyn, her creativity, her talents (which went so much farther than the two in her bra), and her incredibly difficult life and childhood. My favorite two poems were the one about the Seven Year Itch and the one about her style secrets. The novel in verse was definitely the best format for the story, as its sparse language and vignette styling created snapshots of Marilyn's life, mirroring her time in front of a camera. I was also very moved by the fact that she ended the story at her performance of "Happy birthday, Mr. president" and not with her premature death. It was truly a story of Marilyn's life, not the only part we usually remember. Her death is mentioned, but as an epilogue found poem of headlines about the mark she left on the world. This is a verse biography done right and it was extremely powerful. Goodbye, Norma Jeane.