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Beautyland: A Novel

  • Based on 215 reviews
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Description

A Dakota Johnson x TeaTime Book Club Pick A Must-Read: Nylon, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Millions, Kirkus Reviews, BookRiot, The Christian Science Monitor, Our Culture, The Saturday Evening Post “A book that I will recommend to people for the rest of my life.” ―Dakota Johnson, Bustle From the acclaimed author of Parakeet, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a wise, tender novel about a woman who doesn't feel at home on Earth. At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but she reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different: She possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of Earthlings. For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. Then, at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone? Marie- Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life on our Earth and in our universe. It is a remarkable evocation of the feeling of being in exile at home, and it introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux (January 16, 2024)


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374109281


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 88


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.8 x 1.15 x 8.55 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #32,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #141 in Humorous Science Fiction (Books) #550 in Mothers & Children Fiction #2,691 in Literary Fiction (Books)


#141 in Humorous Science Fiction (Books):


#550 in Mothers & Children Fiction:


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If you place your order now, the estimated arrival date for this product is: Monday, Jun 3

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Top Amazon Reviews


  • An Alien’s Experience of Us
Adina Giorno is an alien sent to earth to find a possible home for the beings from her dying home planet. With humor and humility she lives a human life communicating with her superiors via fax and making a human life for herself. Like the sometimes referenced Little Prince, she is perplexed by and wary of human concerns. This is a beautiful novel about her and us. I never once thought it was cute or twee. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2024 by Susan Bass

  • Sweet and Beautiful Story
I loved the character in this story and how it unfolded. I resonated so much with the time period. Great and fast read.
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2024 by C. Roman

  • Absolutely astonishing.
One of the best, most surprising, moving reads I’ve had in a long time.
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2024 by AG

  • Young Adult
Perhaps a third of the way through this novel I realized - in my opinion- that its target audience was probably YA. It is well written and possibly engaging just not for me.
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2024 by E Lee B

  • This novel reads like a fictionalized version of a woman coping with an autistic spectrum disorder.
Well written peek into the subjectivity of a neuro-divergent person. Fascinating.
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2024 by PSD

  • IMPRESSIVE!!
Because I am an avid reader (on average I finish 2.5 books every week) and I am addicted to print books, I refrain from purchasing every book I consume-instead I borrow them from the library or friends or family. Only if I find that I absolutely love the book AND would want to read it again AND I want my children and their children to read it do I end up buying it (I do not have the budget to buy or the space to store every book I read). Yes, I have an e-reader and yes, I occasionally use it and totally comprehend the cost savings, but print books soothe my soul! So "Beautyland" by Marie-Helen Bertino satisfies all my requirements and it is on my list to acquire (thanks to the library for having it readily available and to BookBrowse for leading me to this title). It is just amazing. It is the story of Adina Giorno who believes she was sent to Earth by her people (aliens) to report, via fax machine, on humans. Is this true? Is she really an extraterrestrial or does she have some serious psychological issues? You can decide for yourself. I chose to hold both possibilities within my mind as I turned the pages - think, Schrodinger's cat. This saga takes you from Adina's birth and through the many decades of her life. You learn of her intelligence and empathy for the humans she is "studying" and you ache at her loneliness. You grow to understand her mother, at first an unsympathetic character, but as she says to her daughter, "It's like when you wrote that all we ever ate for dinner was chicken. Little girl, I made pasta every night. What other facts are you misremembering about your childhood?" We watch her lifelong friendship with her best friend Toni and her second best friend Toni's brother Dominic. There are many others in her life, most notably her beloved dog Butternut, her romantic relationship with Miguel and her nightly "visits" with her alien mentor, Solomon. It is rare that a book makes me weep, this one does. It is even more unusual for a work of fiction to make me cry AND laugh, but somehow Bertino does this with her engaging writing style. I cannot wait to add it to my collection so I can refer back to it. I will be thinking about this one for a long, long, long time. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2024 by gloria koch

  • Outstanding Humanity
There is no book greater than those that expose true humanity. There is nothing more moving than to see reflections of yourself in someone living a life completely different from your own. It will always be impossible to truly capture what it means to be human, but this book is the closest I have ever seen. What is more beautiful than that? ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2024 by Jasmine Baker

  • Almost too beautiful and precious to bear
Is it possible for a book to be too beautiful? Too raw? This book was almost too precious to bear. Trigger warnings at the end because they’re kinda spoiler-ish. I do love a weird book and I knew from the description alone that I was for sure going to pick this one up. Adina is born and soon realizes she’s an alien. She has knowledge that she comes from a different planet and has been sent to gather information on earthlings. Of course she sends these dispatches to her superiors via fax machine (easily my favorite detail of the entire book). This book follows her from childhood to early middle age as she lives, trying to figure out her place in the world. I just want to hug our author, Bertino. All of the beautiful, poetic, tender “alien” observations and they all came from her brain. I got choked up several times during this book and couldn’t hardly take how earnest it was. But in the best way possible. I’m not going to lie. Even though it basically states on the back cover that she seems to be an alien I found myself wondering the entire time even up until the very last sentence if she actually was one. If you love quirky reads and you’re a sensitive little soul, I think you’ll enjoy this one. TW: Pet death, friend death ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2024 by Ann Marie Norrid Ann Marie Norrid

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