The Best Kind of Beautiful

Frances Whiting’s skill is in making her characters real. Despite their quirky natures, they are able to draw us into their lives, with such ease, that you feel that you are part of their immediate family. ‘The Best Kind of Beautiful’ centres around Florence, the eldest of three children, who is struggling to be her own person. In doing so, she seems to those around her as an isolated figure, a loner, and not quite fitting in. Albert Flowers, hides his own issues, yet finds a friendship with Florence, that is endearing. This is such a delightful story, with all the idiosyncrasies of family life. I doubt any reader will close this book, and not reflect afterwards about the characters and its resonance in their own lives.
I received an ARC from NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.

I adored this book, loved it from the first few pages.
Centred around a quirky family who make up a family music group, the Saint Claire Swingers. Their claim to fame was and still is the very popular song ‘Santa Was A Jazz Cat’

But really this is about Florence, the eldest of three children trying to find her place in the world. She hasn’t sung with her family for a number of years since a bout of stage fright.  She now works in the local library with the ‘Green Team’ educating groups regarding local flora and fauna. Florence has a good friendship with colleague Albert Flowers but his outside world seems so far away from hers....or is it? They just can’t  quite seem to meet in the middle.

This book was gentle and amusing but what I really loved was for all the individual family members quirks and faults, they understand and are there for each other.
If your looking for a book to transport you away, I can’t recommend it  highly enough. Now I’m off to find the author’s previous novel that I have missed.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy to read.

‘The Best Kind of Beautiful’ is a novel about quirky people from quirky families. Mainly Florence Saint Claire, who is an ex child-performer, with a prickly personality, now working as a gardener, and Albert Flowers who works with her.  Each of them is hiding parts of themselves and the story is about finding themselves and, in turn, finding others. There are some secrets…I don’t want to say too much, though, because I enjoyed the way the plot surprised me. 

Whiting has written a sneaky book. Initially, I was iffy about several main protagonists and I wondered if I would end up liking Florence at all. It worsened when I met two of her friends and wished that the book was about one of them instead (Veronica, an American preacher's daughter. I wasn’t wholly invested in the characters until a third of the way through. To be clear, it wasn’t difficult to continue, it just hadn’t grabbed me fully. But grab me it did. I would absolutely have missed out had I stopped reading too soon because it turned into a story I didn’t want to put down.

Florence became a person who I could really get behind and Albert, who I initially liked, I ended up loving. They were made even better by the surprises they gave me. I also enjoyed the sweet relationship between the three Saint Claire children as they came to understand and accept themselves and their family. The novel deals with stories of loss in a beautiful, moving way. I’m not much of a crier — I don’t think I’ve ever cried from reading a book — yet at one point I felt a huge knot in my throat when I found out someone’s backstory. I was impressed.

I sensed shades of Celeste Ng’s ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ and Gail Honeyman’s ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’ in ‘The Best Kind of Beautiful’ (and that’s good news because I adored both of those novels!) and despite the minor shaky start this was a delight to read. And yes, I will be looking out for more by Whiting. 

Thank you to Pan Macmillan Australia and Netgalley for the copy in exchange for honest review.

A delightfully engaging read about two people seemingly at cross purposes ... who together might just be the best kind of beautiful. If they can get their acts together, that is.

Themes of music, grief, relationships, gardens, love, laughter and family resonate through Frances Whiting's latest novel. She has a quiet and warm writing style that I really like, and that fits this story perfectly.

For me, Walking on Trampolines was a stand-out, but The Best Kind of Beautiful made me smile in the best bookish kind of way.