Book Review: A Handbook For Beautiful People by Jennifer Spruit

When I was 22, I went through a series where one thing happened after another. It was not a great year…and then I turned 23, and I can’t help but mention the Blink 182 song that goes “No one likes you when you’re tweeeeeeentythree…” I was a single momma of a 2-year-old, I had a serious relationship blow up in my face (what was I thinking at the time – I was an athiest socialist feminist at the time engaged to an evangelical conservative Christian. Dinners together consisted of him praying over some boxed mac and cheese while I rolled my eyes, and I had a miscarriage.) I’ve chilled out a bit since then, but man that was a rough year. I was a junior in college, finally back in school after some time off, working two jobs – one as a bookseller and one as a philosophy & logic tutor – and a homeowner. I had a lot of family stuff going on, I had a lot of career stuff going on, and I had a lot of personal stuff going on.

In Jennifer Spruit’s A Handbook for Beautiful People, main character Marla is 22, and she has a lot going on. She’s unexpectedly pregnant, dealing with a flakey but talented boyfriend, and a roommate who is dealing with addiction issues. Marla loses her job, gets in a car accident, takes on her younger brother who is deaf, deals with flooding, and deals with her alcoholic mother. Oh, and she does all of this as someone with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. It’s A. Lot.  And even more than that gets piled onto her plate.

Spruit does a really great job with this. While it seems like the book might be melodramatic, given how much Marla gets piled upon her, it’s not. It’s a magnificent character study of what happens when we get a load of crap piled on us and feel like we’re drowning. I wasn’t able to put the book down.

About A Handbook for Beautiful People

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Inanna Publications (November 24, 2017)

Winner of an IPPY award – bronze in popular fiction

When twenty-two year old Marla finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she wishes for a family, but faces precariousness: an uncertain future with her talented, exacting boyfriend, Liam; constant danger from her roommate, Dani, a sometime prostitute and entrenched drug addict; and the unannounced but overwhelming needs of her younger brother, Gavin, whom she has brought home for the first time from deaf school. Forcing her hand is Marla’s fetal alcohol syndrome, which sets her apart but also carries her through. When Marla loses her job and breaks her arm in a car accident, Liam asks her to marry him. It’s what she’s been waiting for: a chance to leave Dani, but Dani doesn’t take no for an answer. Marla stays strong when her mother shows up drunk, creates her own terms when Dani publicly shames her, and then falls apart when Gavin attempts suicide. It rains, and then pours, and when the Bow River finally overflows, flooding Marla’s entire neighbourhood, she is ready to admit that she wants more for her child than she can possibly give right now. Marla’s courage to ask for help and keep her mind open transforms everyone around her, cementing her relationships and proving to those who had doubted her that having a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder does not make a person any less noble, wise or caring.

Praise

“Wonderful, heartfelt, heartbreaking–I can’t recommend this novel highly enough.” –Annabel Lyon

“Jennifer Spruit has such a distinct, poignant voice, and her brilliant debut novel A Handbook for Beautiful People highlights this perfectly. Through sharp characters and their complications, a driven narrative develops, enveloping us before we have a chance to judge. Jump into this novel. It will sweep you up.” –Joseph Boyden

Purchase Links

Inanna Publications | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

About Jennifer Spruit

Jennifer Spruit was born in Lloydminster, AB/SK, and now lives in Courtenay, BC. She attended the Creative Writing MFA program at the University of British Columbia. Jennifer enjoys teaching kids, playing music, and paddling a blue canoe. This is her first novel.

Find out more about Jennifer at her website.