51 pages • 1 hour read
Beautiful Ugly
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Background
Authorial Context: Alice Feeney
Alice Feeney is a British author who specializes in mystery novels and psychological thrillers. Before launching her fiction-writing career, Feeney worked as a BBC journalist and producer. She also spent over a decade working as a reporter and news editor for various arts and entertainment programs. When Feeney was 30 years old, she enrolled in the Faber Academy’s writing course and concurrently began her first novel. Her debut, Sometimes I Lie, was published in 2018 by Flatiron Books. She has since published six more titles with Flatiron, including I Know Who You Are, His & Hers, Rock Paper Scissors, Daisy Darker, Good Bad Girl, and most recently Beautiful Ugly.
Feeney’s novels Sometimes I Lie, His & Hers, and Rock Paper Scissors have been adapted to the screen. Sometimes I Lie is now a Netflix television series, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. His & Hers and Rock Paper Scissors are still in production and will star Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal in leading roles. Ellen DeGeneres, Jeff Kleeman, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Campo, and Endeavor Content are also projected to participate in these adaptations.
Since launching her career, Feeney has become a New York Times bestselling author, with novels translated into over 35 languages. Her work is in conversation with other mystery and psychological thriller titles including Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novels The Plot and The Sequel, Julia Heaberlin’s We Are All the Same in the Dark, and Elizabeth Brundage’s All Things Cease to Appear.
Genre Context: Contemporary Psychological Thriller
Beautiful Ugly is a contemporary psychological thriller, and Feeney’s novels rely on the tropes and conventions of the genre to create tension and suspense through a fast-paced narrative. In Beautiful Ugly, Feeney employs a handful of traditional psychological thriller tropes to hook her readers and intensify the narrative atmosphere. These tropes include the missing person, the isolated locale, the unreliable narrator, the compromised perspective, the unassuming villain, and moral ambiguity.
The novel is set primarily on the Isle of Amberly, an isolated environment typical of the genre. This isolation ups the stakes for the characters, forcing them to confront their problems, as they can’t escape them. The secluded backdrop for Grady’s story also tests his grasp on reality and heightens his fear and guilt. Abby’s alleged disappearance at the novel’s start acts as the novel’s inciting incident, fulfilling the missing person trope that inspires the novel’s primary mystery and initially casts Grady as a victim of tragedy. Feeney uses an unreliable narrator, compromised perspectives, an unassuming villain, and moral ambiguity to challenge the reader’s perception of Grady and his narrative world throughout the novel. These tropes blur the boundaries between reality and fiction and illustrate the complexities of love, obsession, and isolation. With its adherence to the conventions of the genre, Beautiful Ugly contributes to the mystery and thriller tradition with its high-stakes scenarios, complex character studies, and unexpected outcomes.
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