For a book about a girl who thinks she’s an alien, this is shockingly relatable!

I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author, the publisher and Net Galley.

This book manages to be simultaneously strange and still quite slice of life. We follow the life of a girl who is convinced she is an alien and communicates with her real family and planet via a fax machine.

While sometimes there are undercurrents that makes you question if the alien piece is real, this is primarily about the confusion of existence, not feeling like you fit in, sense of belonging and what makes us human? We see our main character pondering and reporting back on the strange behaviour of humans through her fax machine. Her observations are often wry, sometimes bewildered. Human behaviour often baffling when viewed from outside the herd.

I found this book so touching and relatable. If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t fit in, if you’ve felt like an outsider, if you’ve felt bewildered by the behaviour of other humans then this book is beautifully observational, heart warming and heart wrenching in equal measure and will make you feel not quite so alone.

I went into this book blind and spent most of my time confused - it was a strange one! It was, however, very well written. A complex yet entertaining read.

This is a coming of age narrative with overarching theme that she’s an alien reporting on earth/humans. From this perspective we get someone who always feels like an outsider narrating upon human life and how it feels to grow up.

There was some perfect insights into themes such as growing up in a low income single parent household, forming friendships and trying to find out who ‘you’ are. Set in the backdrop of some major historical events.

Whilst the prose was seemingly complex, there was so much emotion and humour intertwined within it that this made for an enjoyable read.

ARC copy provided by Random House UK/Vintage & NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Adina is born when Voyager 1 launches. Her birth connects her to an alien civilisation and she reports back to them about life on Earth and how humans cope with it. The novel follows her through life, love and loss.

The best books I read last year (The Ministry Of Time, The Husbands, Rare Singles) all had a relatively simple idea, but had rich, mysterious depths. Beautyland is in that class. It’s a strangely beautiful, beautifully strange book. It’s expansive enough to have a neat framing structure (Adina’s life is structured alongside the life cycle of a star), but tricky enough to have some original ideas - Adina reports back to her masters using a second-hand fax machine for example.

Plus, this is a novel that lives in the last half century of American history, but is not a nostalgia trip. Overriding it all is something genuinely brave. The concept that the aliens - a hive mind of souls - actually exist, or it is all a paracosm. And although it is strongly suggested that both Adina is neurodiverse and asexual, Bertino does enough to suggest she is genuinely not of this earth.

A light, yet nourishing and incredibly moving read. It’s published by Random House on 27th March and I sincerely thank them for making me cry.

Marie-Helene Bertino’s novel is a heart-warming and heartbreaking delight. Adina is an alien, or at least completely believes she is an alien, sent to earth to report on human beings. The substance of the book is Adina’s astute yet often baffled observation of people, as someone who never quite fits in, as she lives her life a little on the outside. She faxes her findings to her home planet, a planet she knows from night time “waking”, even though it is so different from earth that it is hard to comprehend. The alien aspect of the book is a subtle underscore of Adina’s difference, as the narrative moves through Adina’s life. We experience her friendships, her relationship with her mother, her attempts at sexual relationships, her joys and her losses. It is beautifully written and I really recommend it as something that celebrates difference and, ultimately, the good things about being human.

Absolutely beautifully written. I was pleasantly surprised when I read this book with how captivating it was! No notes to the author on this one 👏🏻

A brilliantly creative exploration of a neurodiverse experience of life on Earth, Beautyland is the story of a girl who believes she is an alien sent to report on Earth in order to save her race.

Throughout her childhood, adolescence and adulthood Adina shares her unique observations of humanity which are at times humorous and others deeply lonely.

Written from the perspective and perceptions of an alien born,
seemingly, into American society. Thought provoking and relatable as Adina grows into adulthood.

Don't let the title deter you in reading this wonderful book.

Adina is an alien. This is her story of growing up in America and trying to fit in. The planet she comes from is in danger and she's sent to collect information - all sent back via a fax machine. Mundane information about everyday life.

Her descriptions of growing up in America made me realise just how different life is there to the UK - very alien in fact.

She lives a quiet life, making a few friends, becoming famous when her best friend persuades her to publish her notes that she sends back to her planet.

Other worldly but utterly believable. I read this book quickly and enjoyed every moment.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this but there was something about Adina that I couldn't help but feel was too relatable. Despite it all, I couldn't help but wish that she'd stay.

Am I an alien or merely human? Extraterrestrial or alienated? E.T. or lonely?

This is a tender coming-of-age story of Adina, an alien sent to be born as a human girl in the USA. We follow Adina from childhood to adulthood, as she navigates and reports on the oddities of Earthlings. And there’s a lot.

Adina is relatable, honest, to the point, odd.
This makes her quips blunt. Her observations so obvious that you can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of humanity.

<b>Human beings, she faxes, use makeup to feel great about themselves. After dinner, a slip of paper is waiting in the fax machine’s tray. ACTIVATE IRONY.

Death’s biggest surprise is that it does not end the conversation.
</b>
There is stream of consciousness, fragments of time, more introspective than plot focused. It is also very 80s nostalgia, but then we see her becoming an adult during 9/11 into 2015.

This isn’t really sci fi. This is a heart warming lit fic that is very accessible.

Beautyland follows Adina, a girl who believes she is an alien sent to observe humans and report back via a fax machine.

The story is told in what I would possibly describe as short, abstract snapshots of time - which was a bit confusing and made it a bit of a challenging read.

I do believe that this will be the marmite read of 2025, I feel that some will love its originality, while others may find it too abstract. I found the premise intriguing but I’m not 100% sure if Adina was an alien, on the spectrum or just didn’t feel she belonged but maybe that was the point 🤷🏻‍♀️

Beautyland by Marie Helene Bertino is a strange book, but one that I kept coming back to. The protagonist Adina is ostensibly an alien, born to a human mother as Voyager 1 was launched and over the course of the book we see her reporting back to her home planet about life on earth and what it means to be human while struggling because she feels so "other". It's a weird premise and while there were moments that stood out I struggle to figure out who the target reader of this book is, but I don't think it is me. I will say that I found the writing style interesting and that and the premise were enough to keep me reading despite not feeling any connection to the character or her journey.
I read an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage for this ARC.

In 1977, just as Voyager 1 launches, Adina is born to a single mother. She believes she is an alien and sent to Earth to report on human behaviour via a fax machine. Whether this is true or she is simply on the spectrum, who can say. In any case, this is the story of a person not fitting in and making observations about everything while they live their life - puberty, friends, first boyfriend, moving to New York, adopting a dog, writing a bestseller and experiencing grief.

I'm really struggling to review this book, as it is incredibly weird. It was suggested to me I would like it because I liked The Husbands by Holly Gramazio but the two books have absolutely nothing in common.

The writing style is erratic, there are no chapters, just vignettes, and many sentences make no sense whatsoever. I mean what does "Red wine tastes like a dark-walled library and white wine smells like a woman looking away" even mean? Or in the author's own words about Adina: "Her transmissions are episodic, matter-of-fact, and don’t have an overarching story like a novel or miniseries.”

And still, something compelled me to read on as I found the character and her opinions fascinating. One moment she talks about wine, the next she muses at length about Yoko Ono. Some things feel very well observed, others are just trite. There is a lot about friendship, parenthood and not belonging in here, and generally I found how she navigates life interesting. However, the way it is written is too literary for me and I had difficulties with figuring out how old she might be at any time, as there is no real structure to the book, except for a few headings that don't help.

This is the type of book I wouldn't normally read and while I'm not unhappy about having read it as it gives you a lot to think about, I can only give it a middle of the road rating, while acknowledging that some will love it and some will be confused by it.

This is one of those books I find difficult to review because I can appreciate that it’s really good writing and that it has merit but I personally didn’t enjoy it.

I went into it thinking that it would be some ethereal, futuristic sci-fi alien weepy in the style of Set My Heart To Five. However I felt somewhat cheated by the fact that it really is just a bildungsroman set a few decades ago. I see what the point is, but it just doesn’t appeal to me, clever as it is.

I’m very much an outlier on this, but this book didn’t work for me. At all.

A coming of age story about an asexual girl who is on the spectrum and believes she is an alien. Told in the third person with a total lack of emotion, it was like reading a sterile and very long speech.

A painful slog but I made it to the end, somehow.

1⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Thank you to @vintage and @netgalley for providing me with a digital copy of Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino in exchange for an honest review.

We follow Adina, an 'alien' growing up on Earth. Adina documents her journey through life, her childhood, friendships, family, adulthood and grief, sending her findings as notes to her superiors via a fax machine. Adina tries to make sense of human life; our interactions, our behaviour, our relationships and notices the little things we don't see. This is a cosy, emotional read for anyone who has ever felt as if they don't belong.

I was really looking forward to reading this book after reading the synopsis - but I'm afraid I struggled. - not helped by the download that I received missing FL or FI from any word that should contain them (who knew there were so many words!)
The prose is written to reflect Adina's feeling of distance (of being different) to the world around her. This is definitely successful, however it also had the result of stopping me becoming invested in her and the events that happened to her: She suffers major loss and I didn't care.
I had to make myself pick up the book as I wasn't really interested in seeing what happened next.

Born to a human mother in Philadelphia in 1977 just as Voyager 1 begins it's journey, Adina struggles with the idea that she is not of this world and is in fact an alien. She dreams nightly of a classroom and her alien teacher Solomon who informs her that she must report on her findings about humans and their myriad of behaviours. When her mother finds an old fax machine Adina uses it as a means to communicate with her alien brethren.

What follows is a touching tale of childhood to adulthood as experienced through the eyes of a daughter of a single mother, a loyal friend to Toni and Toni's brother Dominic and as an escapee to the Big Apple.

At it's heart this tale is a human one, of grief, alienation and depression yet it also manages to be heartwarming and uplifting.

✨2 stars✨

I knew when I was offered to read this ARC that while the premise sounded interesting, it wasn’t what I usually read but I was willing to give it a go.

Sadly this book just wasn’t for me and I found myself bored throughout. There were humorous parts so I think if you like the description of the book then you should still give it a go when it is published!

I received an ARC from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

I enjoyed this book, its original storyline was intriguing.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review..