Review: Beautiful Ruins By: Jess Walter

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Is our lives nothing but a beautiful ruin? There is a saying in my family, want to make God laugh - share your plan.
Enter a small forgotten Italian village in 1962, where Pasquale is keeping his father's dream alive and Dee, a movie star has gone into hiding. Flash to the present and infamous Michael Deane has his past confront him.
When Cleopatra was being filmed, Burton found solace in the arms of a new actress, Dee Moray. The result of which led to a pregnancy that Michael Deane chose to lie about and try to manipulate. Dee believing she has stomach cancer and will soon go to Switzerland for a procedure hides away waiting for Burton to show. Finding herself in a small fishing village with a young man, Pasquale, running The Adequate View Hotel and giving her a sense of life.
Each person, including secondary characters, find their pain, their truth, and their way back intersecting their lives once again.
I found this book thoroughly marvelous. The writing had me lost along the cliffs and in the intricate characters, I felt their pain, disgust, joy, and growth as their lives passed with each page. If there is one book you pick up - this is it.

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