Review: My Beautiful Failure by Janet Ruth Young

3.5 stars

She was a girl talking to me in the dark.

Billy is a new volunteer in the suicide hotline, and on the first day of his job, he receives a call from a girl named Jenny. Jenny told him that she was abused by her parents when she was a kid, and how her life went downhill after she started remembering the memories of the abuse. Billy wants desperately to help Jenney, but he is restricted by rules saying that it’s prohibited to form friendship with people who call. But Billy knows that Jenney is special to him, and he doesn’t hesitate to break rules and offer her his friendship. As Jenney’s calls become more frequent and more desperate, Billy has to race with time if he wants to save the girl whom he knows everything but her last name and her address.

My Beautiful Failure is undeniably melancholic, but it is also infused with lots of hope and wish for better days. The author might not be very successful in creating a guy’s voice, but the plots are very well-crafted and the story itself may as well happen in real life. To what extend you should push the boundaries between stranger and friend? There is a fine line between listening and being too much involved, and the main character, Billy, has problem differentiating the line.

Billy is not a character I liked instantly. With his caring personality and his obsession to become a psychologist, it shouldn’t be a problem to like him the moment I met him. However, Billy is a typical teenager with senseless belief that he knows everything about people, and it was hard to connect with him when he was being such a worrywart or a smartass. Billy is obsessed in saving people, and I can’t say that I don’t understand the need to do something amazing when you are young. I’m so glad that events in this book mold Billy into a more mature person in the end, and when I finished the book, it’s safe to say that I think of Billy as a friend.

Surprisingly, My Beautiful Failure is a short read and one I finished in no time. Despite my earlier difficulty to connect with Billy, I didn’t have difficult time appreciating the plots, the underlying message, and the supporting characters. All in all, My Beautiful Failure is not a book you would like to miss if you’re fans of contemporary or in need of something a little thought-provoking. The book itself is like a gentle reminder that after all, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

I rested my hand on one of the phones as if to test myself. The job was monumental, the ultimate responsibility. The way the rules were written, someday someone might call and mine would be the last voice that person would ever hear. In a few days I would start saving lives. But only if they wanted to be saved

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I rate this book:

Four cups of tea. I like it, recommended to read in your spare time.