"Beautiful" by Amy Reed

     Cassie didn't want to be herself. Who would be, when you're a smart, beautiful, and talented seventh grader? Cassie just wanted to be popular. In the book,"Beautiful", by Amy Reed, Cassie got what she wanted and way more. Her life is turned upside down by peer- pressure and abuse. She moved from a small town into a suburb in Seattle. Normally, girls would be devastated if they had to leave all of their friends, but not Cassie. She wanted a fresh start. She was determined to be the one that everyone looked at while in the hallway in between classes. With a little help from her good 'friend' Alex, her life becomes more than she can handle and before the school year is over she has dug herself into a hole that was nearly impossible to get out of.
    One of the two main themes of the book was peer-pressure. Cassie meets a 'cool' girl named Alex. She and her friends are older than Cassie. Most of them do drugs and have sex because it helps them let go of their horrible home lives. When Alex approaches Cassie and tells her to come hang out with them, she finds her way in to the cool crowd. She is incredibly beautiful and she uses that to her advantage. All of the cool kids, including Cassie and Alex go to one person's house. Before she stepped foot in that house, she was a virgin. When she came out, she wasn't anymore. Soon she starts doing drugs with Alex and having even more sex. The drugs and sex become a replacement for her emotions, to block out her alcoholic mother and dad that doesn't care about anything but work.
    The second of the two main themes of the book was abuse. Cassie abuses drugs and lets others abuse her body. She is now just like the other cool kids. Every time she has a problem, she takes a smoke, a drink, or drugs. She has become reliant on those three things to get her through every day. She has sex so that she can feel something, even though it brings her no joy, but the opposite- emotional pain. Cassie cannot stop it although she tries. When she becomes aware that she is addicted, she stops trying, thinking that there is no way to get out of this. An example of this is when Cassie was at a family gathering. She was tired of hearing her family, but could not just leave. Instead, she took an acid strip and went of to fix herself a drink.
    The book "Beautiful," by Amy Reed can teach the reader about  the power and effect of peer-pressure and addiction. It can destroy anyone's life, no matter how young or old the person is. It makes the reader more mindful about how they make other people feel and how other people are making them feel, because just one word,'Beautiful', can change the course of someone's entire life.