Member Reviews
I received an eARC of this title through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
This was a good second volume. I like that the main character is starting to see how people always talk about others and her solution is to help those around her. Also, her and Suho become closer which is interesting, since he is the only one who has recognized her outside of her make up. I really like the growth of their friendship and it not just be a "they like each other automatically" situation. It's refreshing to see them become friends first.
There are some interesting topics that get touched on in this volume. One is how the protagonist is a middle child and gets the worst from her mom daily. When she decides she wants to go for a career in makeup artistry, her mom immediately shuts her down saying they could not afford it, then the next day allows the youngest brother to take acting classes after school. It really makes you feel bad for the main character and her struggle to reach her dreams.
I really liked a lot about this one, but not as much as the first volume. There was kind of a lot of jumping around with various scenes and plots going on and then they weren't seen again in this book so it felt really chaotic. I'm sure they'll come up again in further volumes.
Still, we are getting some more character depth and closeness. I'm definitely still interested in more from the series.
Thank you so much for the ARC! 4.5 stars!
True Beauty is always such a fun read, there is a unique humor to this webtoon and the art style is always really lovely. I think this volume kind of dips back and for from the actual plot and has some pretty obviously placed ads (unless that a kdrama humor nod in which case lol). I like Suho becoming closer with Jugyeong and this volume shows us a little more depth to Jugyeong as she starts really coming in to her own. Cant wait to see how Volume 3 goes!
Thank you to Netgalley, Wattpad WEBTOON Book Group, and WEBTOON Unscrolled for allowing me to read this book!!
I was a big fan of the first volume and elated to read the second volume. The second volume picks up right where volume one ends. The story continues to follow Juyeong's life as she navigates relationships, school, and family. To keep this review as spoiler free as possible Juyeong is in some not so good realtionships. The volume also explores familial pressures about school. In these moments I really wanted to give Juyeong a hug Additionally, we also see more development of Suho, who I offically have deemed as adorable. If you have not picked up volume one already what are you waiting for!!!
A review for True Beauty Vol 1 will be released on Wednesday April 5th at 12:00pm on Instagram @abookwormsgarden!!
I read the first Volume and I absolutely love this unique story concept. I’m a big fan of the Korean movie 200 pound beauty and this reminds me of that style. This volume two stars right where the first one leaves off.. not to give any spoilers, but we do start seeing more relationship development and I absolutely love it. My favorite part so far is the main female lead meeting her dobberganger and wanting to help her. Unfortunately, volume two ends before we get to see her, helping her new friend.
We’ll just have to wait for volume three to see what happens.
What is there NOT to love about this Webtoon? I am absolutely hooked to each one of these characters and how they're emotionally doing. I'm mentally, physically, and emotionally invested in this story!
Joo Kyung is the cutest bean ever. I can still never believe her transformation. I will always...ALWAYS be team Suho but Seojun is another level.
Personally, I love the True Beauty Webtoon and I'm really excited to see these physical volumes releasing. It has been so fun reliving this series and I'm very excited for what is to come.
What you should know about Volume Two of the series:
- These volumes honestly should be read in order for context.
- You do get more "story" out of the second volume but there is still a lot of preamble and initial character set-up in this one that will pay off later.
- You’ll see some very important characters/storylines introduced that play out in the remaining volumes.
- Volume Two really starts to really touch on how appearance based judgment can affect people ( i.e. the pressures, assumptions, fear of judgment, and effects on their self-esteem and psyche) as well as the line between adjusting your image to fit society's standards and when doing so makes you "fake" or "disingenuine."
- This volume will touch on the main character's perceived relationship with her family and cultural differences, the artwork used, and the age of the main character may make those relationships (especially the one with the mother) seem odd or overdramatic to some readers.
- For those who watched the show but have not yet read any of this series, there will be differences between the two.
It’s great to see True Beauty in physical book format. Much like the first, this second volume transitions perfectly to the page. The original webtoon is in a continuous scroll format and is only partitioned by chapters, however, the physical copy has obvious page breaks. I applaud the book’s formatters for doing a stellar job to ensure that the story flows from one page to the next.
Volume 2 covers a wide array of stories. Jugyeong meets a pick-up artist who becomes her “boyfriend,” and with a short turnaround, she then loses that crappy boyfriend. She continues her study sessions with Suho and gets together with her friends. She even gets a less-than-desirable job in order to help her pursue her goal of going to makeup school. This volume covers a lot of material and introduces many characters that will play a bigger role later on in the series. If you’re a first-time reader of True Beauty, this volume might seem a bit all over the place in its narrative. However, if you are a character-driven reader, you’re sure to fall in love with these characters no matter what shenanigans they get up to.
The second half of this volume is far more interesting and more integral to the overall plot of True Beauty. As the audience, we get to see Jugyeong expand her thoughts on real beauty, beauty standards, lookism, and being perceived as fake. She starts to understand her relationship with makeup on a whole new level and seeks to use her powers for good. In life, it is so easy to miss out on interesting people because they don’t meet a certain standard of beauty. True Beauty challenges people to look inward and to consider that the people we may casually dismiss are so much more worthy of our time than we could have ever imagined.
It’s far from a perfect story. Given that it was originally published as a weekly webcomic, it’s not necessarily the most cohesive story, but the meat of the story is fantastic and its characters are compelling and fun. Overall, I really enjoy this series and will be happy to review the next volume.
I have read this web toon so many times and watched the kdrama adaptation as well and I love it so much! This volume has episodes 14-26 and it's the part where things are finally getting good with bad boy Seojun in the mix. I love all the characters in this book so much and the art is so pretty! I'm so excited for the rest of the volumes! Can't wait to see how this story continues.
Let me start by saying that I enjoyed this volume more than the first one, if that is even possible, in here our main character Lim she is starting to realize what she wants to do of her life, so she really wants to enrol in a makeup school, but is really expensive, so that is a problem… Lim realises that makeup can really help boost the confidence of others or even transform them (she did a try out with his brother and that opened a new experience for her, but if you want to know more, I advise you to get a copy ^___^), but she also enjoys the freedom of not having to put makeup around when only with Suho (the boy that could see way beyond of her facade), also it is also cute how their relationship is evolving with our main character being completely clueless to his feelings about her.
In here we get to know more characters that I believe will be more important in the future, one being a girl named Gowoon, that is like the twin sister lost at birth from our main character, and I believe she will help our main character grown and even grow herself (Gowoon) from an ugly duck to a beautiful swan.
Honestly I only have praises to give to this manga, is starting to evolve the story, we don’t have those tutorials about makeup that we had on the first volume, now we are getting deep in the story and for the ones that love a good k-drama, webtoons, Korean manga, you know, this is right out of our kind of alley ;)
Thank you NetGalley and Wattpad WEBTOON Book Group for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.
I'm really enjoying this series so far. At times, our main character can feel a little vain and frustrating, but for the most part, I'm liking her and our cast of characters. And, as always, this art style is absolutely gorgeous. Loving this in graphic novel format. Can't wait for the next installment!
I am a huge K Drama fan, and found this series through the adaptation on Viki starring Moon Ga Young and Cha Eun Woo. As soon as the series ended, I downloaded the Webtoon app because I was having a huge hangover. I sped through all of the backlisted episodes and am now caught up to the end of the series and the spin-off episodes.
I was thrilled to buy Volume 1 when it was released last year and I can say without hesitation that I will be buying Volume Two when it releases on May 30th. The eArc that I received from NetGalley and the publisher (Wattpad WEBTOON Book Group) doesn't read much differently than the webtoon, so I will be thrilled to hold a copy with pretty, glossy pages in my hands.
This story follows Im JuGyeong through high school and beyond. She was bullied mercilessly in middle school for being unattractive. When her family relocates, she is able to transform herself through make-up and hide her past. It's a wonderful YA story of finding yourself, friendship, and love.
If you enjoy k-dramas or high school romance, this is a wonderful and fast read.
Such a fun and Funny read!! I love the full color of this and the story is starting to develop more! I am definitely hooked and looking forward to future volumes! Will recommend this series to anyone looking to get more into manga/graphic novels!
Thank you, NetGalley, publisher, and author, for giving me an advanced reader copy.
I had trouble downloading and opening this file, and it took me a while to finally get a chance to read it. The artwork is amazing, and the storyline is intense. I really enjoy the overall direction of the characters, and I'll be following the rest of the series.
I love seeing this in book format, and I'm so happy that Webtoons is branching out and making some of their top series into physical book copies as well. One, I think that it's a great way to get the art and names out there to more of the public, and two, it's a really nice way to binge read in one setting without killing your battery.
As for the story itself, a lot more is starting to happen at this point. Our main character, Jugyeong, has fallen into the trap of valuing/thinking more of others based on their appearance herself. She's eager to be friends with beautiful Sujin at school, despite Jugyeong's friends pointing out that she's not always fair or particularly nice, even to Jugyeong herself. Jugyeong is quick to defend Sujin, who has even went out of her way to introduce her to a boy to be a possible boyfriend - though he isn't quite what he seems.
Jugyeong continues to see how people treat her differently when she's dressed up and has make up on, compared to when she goes out as she is normally. For her still, there is no downside to being pretty, and with her newly found make up tricks, she can't understand why everyone isn't trying their hardest to change their appearance. She also discovers that make up is something she wants to do for a career, and seeks out a college program that will let her do just that. It might not be as easy as it seems to get into and make everything work out though.
Will we see more growth in her? Will beauty have its downside? These are questions brought up well toward the end of the book, and ones that it seems we'll have an answer to before long. There are more players brought into the picture, including ones who might have a key to Suho's past.
I think this was really well done. The story isn't perfect, and it can be hard to pick up clues about how a different culture operates. I thought the author did a good job of approaching some big subjects with humor, but not going overboard and turning the comic into a pure gag piece. The art is lovely as usual, and I look forward to reading more. There are a few panels that got a little squished upon transferring to the book format, and some of the words can be a bit hard to read, though I'm hoping in print that issue might be solved a little more compared to smaller screens.
This is a book that I hope can find its way into the hands of many new readers, and original fans of the series!
ARC provided by NetGalley.
This is a really fun series, I enjoyed the first volume a lot and have enjoyed the second one as well. I do think that the cut off of this volume is bizarre - it just stopped on a page and didn’t have any ending so I’m not sure if that was just the ARC or if that is how the second volume will be ending. If that’s how it ended, I will say it was pretty abrupt but otherwise this is a decent continuation of the story.
I am still loving the main character and loving the love interest more and more but I this volume didn’t feel like much happened compared to the first - I am loving the new passion for our MC. She’s realizing she wants to be a makeup artist and is now struggling to find out how to make that happen with her mom not helping (the mom currently sucks 0/10). I am intrigued by this new boy who seems to hate our love interest for some reason…and now our frenemy is struggling as well. I think the continuation has held its humor as the first one had but is diving deeper into what it means to be conventionally attractive and our MCs struggle with feeding into the group of people who are cruel to those who don’t look “attractive”. I think this is really turning into a fascinating story of how hard is it to get through life due to “lookism” and I’m looking forward to seeing how our MC and her crew handles it. Will be purchasing for my library!
An enjoyable read with gorgeous artwork as always!
Sometimes I just wanna smash Suho and Jugyeong's heads together so that they can finally kiss. I love that Sujin is given more depth and backstory here unlike in the drama. We are also finally introduced to Seo Jun and I can't wait to see where it all goes! Now I feel like rewatching the show...
I'm in the middle of a graphic novel and comic book phase and I thought this might be the perfect way to go especially given the high ratings!
However, and maybe I'm the only one who felt this, the book was really hard to read. Pages were regularly missing and I think I missed a good portion of the plot!
From what I could gather, if you like K dramas this is the perfect graphic novel for you. The book is fun, has drama, and beautiful people. I know a friend I would get a copy for, but I don't want to finish this given that I have so many pages missing.
Love love LOVE this series! It is so fun, with a focus on personal growth, natural beauty, and having confidence in yourself. Totally recommend if you want a fun read about how beauty standards can influence our lives!
I was given this for free in exchange for an honest review.
I have to say that I absolutely LOVE this series!! The art is amazing, the characters are all so well written and believable and the story is stunning.
I love watching the characters change and grow.
If you love Manhwa or just really good romance stories, pick this book series up!!