From its breathtaking opening passage straight through to its richly satisfying ending (thank goodness), Simon’s telling of the story of Beautiful Girl and her life’s love Homan held me in its grip. This is a total page-turner, a quality so rare yet so wonderful. Who doesn’t love a page-turner? Beautiful Girl is a young white woman with limited speech. Homan is a deaf African American man. They love each other in the purest sense. For a few days they both escape the School for the Incurable and Feeble Minded—a fact that defines the next 40 years of their lives. They seek safety in the farmhouse of Martha, a retired schoolteacher quietly and uneventfully living out her days following her husband’s death. In one stunning gesture, Beautiful Girl turns Martha’s life upside down, setting off a course of events that create that oh-so-wonderful-I can’t-put-it-down feeling for the reader. This is not meant to be coy, but I’m not saying more about the plot—each event unfolds in beautiful storytelling fashion and I don’t want to spoil the reading experience. I do consider this a beautiful novel, with an emphatic message about a bleak time in our country’s mental health treatment history. This is a book to read, and then give to all your friends. It’s a perfect summer read, even though it will release first in hardcover. A word of advice—don’t read the reviews before the book. They reveal too much of the story. ~Wendee