Review: My Life in Black and White

My Life in Black and White by Natasha Friend

Publisher: Viking Juvenile 
Publication Date: June 28th 2012
Pages: 294
Source: Library
Genres: Contemporary
Goodreads

Lexi has always been stunning. Her butter-colored hair and perfect features have helped her attract friends, a boyfriend, and the attention of a modeling scout. But everything changes the night Lexi's face goes through a windshield. Now she's not sure what's worse: the scars she'll have to live with forever, or what she saw going on between her best friend and her boyfriend right before the accident. With the help of her trombone-playing, defiantly uncool older sister and a guy at school recovering from his own recent trauma, Lexi learns she's much more than just a pretty face.

This was a really heartbreaking but beautiful story about Lexie, a girl who has  been known as the "pretty one" her entire life, and then the world as she knew it hit a brick wall when she went face first through a windshield. My Life in Black and White is a story of friendship and identity as Lexie faces her best friend Taylor's betrayal that she found out about right before getting a ride home with her Taylor's brother who crashed the car.

The first few chapters in this  book were really well done. The book starts out telling the story of Lexie and Taylor's friendship and how one thing led to another in the entire story. The way the story was introduced gave it a much different flavor than it would have had without such an introduction to what is happening in the story.

One of the things that really drew me to this book was the very interesting and gripping synopsis (above) and just how interesting the story is. I love how this book has a strong personal identity theme in which Lexie tries to reconnect with who she is after feeling that her "Pretty Girl" life is now gone. She discovered that she didn't have to be who she was before nor did she have to change. She thought that just because she looked different now that all the people she called friends would abandon her, and then she learned that that was not the case whatsoever.

My Life in Black and White also centers on the friendship story of Taylor and Lexie. Though I didn't like how it was mainly centered on the troubles in their friendship, I really did like how there was a strong connection between the two friends and I loved how their story was told.

My biggest issue with the story was Lexie's best friend Taylor. Taylor was just... a terrible friend really. Taylor did something terrible that ruined her and Lexie's friendship and with everything that she said and did in the story I really didn't think she deserved to be friends with Lexie again.