Book Review - Hideous Beauty

• Title And Author: Hideous Beauty by William Hussey
• Publisher: Usborne
• Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Physical
• Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by publisher in exchange for honest review/reaction
• Length: 336 Pages

OMG! Am writing a blogpost reaction to a book! Which isn’t out yet! For several months! For once, i’m AHEAD OF THE GAME!!! And before you ask, I might be coming down with a cold but barring that, this is unheard of for me! 

Ok, I am going to say I was’t really away till I started chatting to the author, William Hussey, on Twitter. I’m out of the loop on most things, so when he asked if the publisher could send me a copy of his debut, I was “Ok, why not”. Then I read more of the blurb (not much, but enough) and I went “I need this in my life as soon as!”. I mean, an thriller with a gay romance at its heart? Sign me up! Plus, I knew I would be in the mood for a thriller this time of year - screw soppy romance novels, give me murdery reads!

After his secret relationship with Ellis is exposed on social media, Dylan has the come out. But, to his surprise, everyone is really kind and supportive. Or at least, seem to be. So when Ellis’s car loses control and things take a tragic turn, Dylan begins to realise that he knows very little about the boy he love and the people around him. But Dylan knows he has to figure out the truth… no matter how painful and heartbreaking it could be…

This is heartbreakingly good. As in, even though it took me a few weeks to read (real life kept getting in the way), once I sat down to read, I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to keep going, even though I didn’t want to as it would mean staying up WAY past my bedtime!

The friendships, the romance, the mystery, the humour, the relatability, all worked and made this such fun to read, even though this book is quite dark and does contain triggers. For some, unknown reason, I always compared this to Tanya Byrne’s Follow Me Down and I’m not sure why, but I always put these two together.

Speaking of triggers, the copy I read from had a trigger warning at the very start of the book warning about drug use, assault, homophobia, cancer, mental health, grief and other issues. Why aren’t more publishers doing this? This would be really helpful.

Ok, I do have a tiny nit-pick and the reason for this is because I read thrillers and crime, and because of this, I saw some twists coming. Not all - there was one I didn’t see coming that knocked me for six. But some of you thriller readers might see it coming faster than I did.

But I really liked this book, and I really want you to put this on your radar when it comes out in June. Great for you guys, not so much for me as I now have to wait OVER A YEAR for William’s next thriller and I’m not I can be that patient…