Thank you to netgalley and publishers! This was a 3.5 rating for me but I rounded up on here.

I really became invested in all the characters. I wanted to know how there grief would get better and what it took to do it. Terms like twinless broke my heart with Shay, Logan was destructive it was hard to watch but painfully real., Autumn made me text my long time best friend from middle school because I couldn't fathom losing her.

My reason for the star drop is just because there were a few spots that just moved to slow for me. It had me sitting the book down from time to time.

All in all this was a great debut and I can't wait to see what she does next!

Very sad read. It focuses on three teens who have all lost a peer that they cared for. As a parent, it's hard to read about the death of young people so this was a difficult, emotional read. Not sure, I would recommend this for young adults still in high school. Maybe once they've distanced themselves from some of the angst of high school, they could read it and not internalize much of the emotion of the novel. Or if it could be used for a grief youth group.

Thank you to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for access to the eBook ARC of The Beauty That Remains in exchange for my honest feedback.

In The Beauty That Remains, Ashley Woodfolk explores dealing with grief and guilt through the prospective of three teens: Autumn, Shay, and Logan. Autumn lost her best friend; Shay lost her twin, and Logan lost his estranged ex-boyfriend. In addition to grief, their connection to a local band and their love of music ties their story together.

The book alternates between the three teens and incorporates social media posts from the deceased to tell the story. Due to the alternating view points and the multiple narratives, the story seemed to slow towards the end. While some of the story may feel cliche, it is rooted in believable and varied reactions to grief, and the author brings to light interesting discussions about the digital ghosts we leave behind.

4.5/5 Stars

Why is it that I'm always drawn to books that rend my heart into pieces? Honestly though, The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk is an exquisitely nuanced story of life and death through the eyes of three teenagers. It captures the myriad ways loss impacts each individual while also delving into the craziness of high school life. With so much heart on the page, I'll focus on five reasons this book is a must read.

Top 5 Reasons Beauty Still Remains
1. This book's take on loss, grief, and everything that comes with it is incredible. It deals with holding emotions inside, raging against the world, blaming oneself, overwhelming anxiety, seeking help and so much more. Each person handles grief differently and Woodfolk captures that perfectly.
2. An emotional story doesn't work if the reader cannot feel for the characters. Thankfully all three had distinct traits, (Autumn, the reserved artist, Logan, the intense singer-songwriter, and Shay, the passionate music aficionado), that anyone could see themselves on the page.
3. Diversity! Autumn is an adopted Korean American, Logan is gay, Shay is black and it doesn't stop there.
4. I loved that music was what connected all of theses stories together in both big and small ways.  That is what music does after all. Plus the Unraveling Lovely is an epic band name!
5. Woodfolk's writing was spectacular, presenting a heartfelt narrative with three unique perspectives that delivered on tough topics. Kudos for a killer debut!

Overall The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk is a gripping story of grief that leaves a lasting impression. The author weaves a complex narrative of interconnecting characters and emotions with ease and creates a vivid picture of life and loss. Autumn, Shay, and Logan were wonderful characters to follow and centering the story around music was a brilliant choice. I absolutely recommend this one!

This book was beautiful. I loved it. Books that deal with such a heavy subject can sometimes be too much but the connectiveness of this really pulled through for me.

Shay, Logan, and Autumn share a group of friends that are united for their love of indie rock and the band Unraveling Lovely . When they all simultaneously lose someone they love, the group falls apart as grief affects them all in completely different ways. Shay suffers from panic attacks after she loses her twin sister Sasha. Logan is obsessed with watching his ex-boyfriend Bram's videos and alcohol, and Autumn continues to confide in her best friend Tavia via email while she isolates herself from her friends and family. As their grief and guilt continue to weigh them down, they struggle to fight their way out of the darkness and the one thing that brought them all together may be the only thing that can save them.

This standout debut novel from Ashley Woodfolk is amazing. This is a well-written story with real characters that you can relate to and empathize with. If you're looking for plot twists and a thrilling climax, this may not be the story for you. But if you want an authentic, absorbing and worthwhile read about loss and grief, then look no further because The Beauty That Remains is the book for you.

WARNING: Grief, Depression, Suicide

Shay, Autumn and Logan have lost someone they love; Shay, her twin to Leukemia, Autumn, her bestfriend to an accident and Logan, his ex-boyfriend to an overdose.

In hindsight, I should've known better than to read this book. Given my ongoing battle with against depression, this isn't the right book for me but when I'm done reading I wasn't regretful at all. I'm fine so I think that's a good thing. Yes, I was left very emotional with the characters, not so much with Autumn though. I kinda feel her POV a little lacking. But Logan and Shay, I felt so much. How can one move on after losing someone? And how can someone get through the grief when it's also tinted with regret because these three have all the reasons to be regretful for the deaths of their loved ones. And that's what make this book so emotional. This book really talked deep to me I cried more than I expected. I think the author succeeded on making each character's voice really distinguishable that reading their POVs felt more emotional.
Though I really liked each of the three character's stories , I don't think I liked it that much how they were connected. I didn't really dislike it but there wasn't special about it either. It's like reading three separate stories in a trilogy that can be read as standalones. But it still great how the author weaved their stories together.

Overall, I encourage everyone to read this. It was well-written and the characters voices are truly unique and interesting to read. :) But again, I'm warning you with triggers.

Delacorte Press and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of The Beauty That Remains. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Autumn, Logan, and Shay are the ones that are left behind. Each lost someone special to them and each is finding their life empty now. Tavi will always be Autumn's best friend, despite dying in a car accident. Sasha will always be Shay's twin sister, although she recently died from complications due to leukemia. Logan will always regret his last words to Bram, especially because of what happens afterwards. Will the three that are left living be able to find some comfort and solace in others?

The three stories intersect through music, but there is too much that happens individually to make The Beauty That Remains a cohesive novel. The reader gets pulled in too many directions with three narrators telling the stories of the three different people that they loved. The author took too long to join the distinct plot lines, making the book too disjointed. The Beauty That Remains includes socially relevant topics such as suicide, death, and illness, so teenage readers might be able to connect to one or more of the characters. The book has a good premise, but I was disappointed in how the stories were presented. For these reasons, I would be hesitant to recommend The Beauty That Remains.

We follow the story of Autumn, Shay and Logan in this debut novel of Ashley Woodfolk. The three of them have recently lost someone important in their lives. Autumn lost her best friend to car accident, Shay lost her twin sister to leukemia, and Logan lost his ex-boyfriend to suicide. Each of them has their own way of dealing with their loss and grief. But until when they can accept the fact that they cannot bring back the lives of their loved ones no matter how hard they try?

Can we all just take a minute to aprreciate how gorgeous this cover is? It was actually what drew me in to get the e-arc. I love everything about it. Definitely one of my favorite book covers of all time.

Now let us talk about the book. I really enjoyed reading this book and appreciate the diversity in the cast of characters. They are all unique and relatable especially to those who have experinced (or experiencing) the same situations they’re going through.

I liked that music plays a huge part in their lives and it also connects them together. Music heals! This book also tackles on different relevant issues such as mental health, suicide, drugs, and death.

I love reading books with more than one perspective because I get to know more of the characters and what’s going on in their heads. This book has three different perspectives! I totally enjoyed reading their thoughts but most of the time it was hard for me to identify their voices, especially Autumn and Shay. And it somehow affected the way I wanted to connect with the characters. I also struggled keeping up with the names of the secondary (and tertiary) characters because there were a lot of them.

The pacing felt slow but the writing is beautiful and simple. The words flow easily which makes this book a fast-read. I hope that makes sense. The used of social media as part of the characters’ coping mechanism was pretty interesting, in my opinion. We get to see the advantages and disadvantages of it, of course.

This book is emotional and heartbreaking from the very beginning which was totally okay for me but it became a little exhausting. It also felt a little repetitive. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading books that will make me cry and some of the scenes in this book made me teary-eyed but I didn’t invest too much with the characters. At some point, I got annoyed to this one character because I felt that she is just being selfish.

It took awhile before the stories/characters to overlap which was quite odd since they’ve known each other already. They have just quite parted ways. I was still trying to guess how or when it will happen around 70% of the book. There is romance in the story but I didn’t really care about it at all. Also, the mention of Unraveling Lovely (Logan’s ex-band) and their music in almost every chapter was quite tiresome.

Overall, The Beauty That Remains is a heart-warming, very moving and powerful novel. It reminds us the importance of acceptance and closure.

This book was beautiful and touching. It is relatable and emotional. Loved it.

The Beauty That Remains is a debut novel of Ashley Woodfolk. This book focuses on how three teenagers suffers from grief and how music helps them deal with it. It’s written in three-point of views: Autumn who loss her bestfriend; Logan who loss his ex-boyfriend; and Shay who loss her twin sister.

Autumn is an adopted Korean-American who constantly send messages to her bestfriend even though she’s aware that it won’t be read. Logan write songs and was a lead singer of Unraveling Lovely. He resorts to alcohol when his ex-boyfriend died, couldn’t write songs and fails school; Shay loves music, attends different shows and post reviews about Independent bands, but, she develops panic attacks when her twin sister died.

Honestly, I’m having a hard time writing a review for this book because I think it’s a heavy topic. Losing someone you love is really painful and it’s hard to accept. The Beauty That Remains opened my eyes on how people feel, think or do when they are suffering from grief. It widens my perspective about acceptance and moving forward.

What I like about this book is how three narrators show their willingness to move forward, to face the truth that their loved one died, to reconnect with people surrounding them and to use music to help them deal with grief. Moreover, secondary characters has a great impact to me. Without them, those three wouldn’t be aware of what they are doing unconsciously. Family and friends are really great help to deal grief. I’m hurting every time Autumn, Logan and Shay do things every time they remember their loved ones, can’t let go and can’t move forward. I understand that it’s really hard but people around them worries about them because they are losing it… slowly.

Further, I love how diverse The Beauty That Remains is. Aside from the fact that it has characters representing different race, it also dealt with panic attacks, depression, and therapy techniques.

Although some parts are predictable, still, there are parts that shocked me.

I also love how Autumn, Logan and Shay got connected through music and how important Unraveling Lovely to them. They always listen to Unraveling Lovely’s music every time they feel that the world eats them, they remember their loved ones and they can’t hold on.

The Beauty That Remains is a page-turner, sad but beautifully written (this book really touches my heart). I couldn’t stop reading that most of the time, I’m crying because I couldn’t take what I’m reading, but, it sends us a message that we should not lose our hope and faith that life still beautiful even though we lose someone we love.

You guys… this book is so sad, but also VERY beautiful! I have to admit I found myself thinking of the people I’ve lost and I thought of a lot of situations that made me feel connected to the characters, and yeah… it wasn’t the best emotional experience but I just couldn’t stop reading because the writing is so damn beautiful!

The story is told in three different point of views, where each character has to deal with the loss of a loved one. Through the story you will see the following POVs;

Autumn – lost her best friend
Logan – lost his ex-boyfriend
Shay – lost her twin sister

This is 100% a character driven story. We never stop learning about the characters, their struggles, their losses… to the point where you WILL be attached to them. I have to admit, the ONE thing the story could have improved is that all three POVs sounded similar. Each character deals with different things, but overall, the voices through the story had the same “tone”. The story revolves a lot about grief, loss, and how the characters deal with it, and sometimes I kept forgetting which POV I was reading because the tone felt similar.

Regardless of that, the characters deal with their losses in very different ways and this is something that makes the story interesting. We have Autumn who blames herself for the death of her friend, while Logan recurs to alcohol, and lastly, Shay who is experiencing panic attacks.

Music plays a big part through the story; it’s what brings all the characters together! We see how grief has made the characters struggle with their creation process (from writing music to even just enjoying it) and how music can help heal certain wounds. The story isn’t perfect. The ending isn’t perfect, but I have to admit that it is damn accurate!

Losing people is never easy, and we deal with grief differently, but I saw a little bit of myself in some of these characters and I think that a lot of people will see themselves too. If you’re looking for a book that will give you “all the feels”, then you definitely must pick this one!

Overall Rating: 4.5 stars

Trigger warning for suicide, alcoholism, anxiety / panic attacks.

It's ambitious to tie together plots of characters grieving three entirely unrelated deaths, but Woodfolk pulls it off. We are presented with three distinct events. They're linked by connections to a band rather than any links in the deaths. The characters grieve in a variety of ways but they are all struggling. They fail to relate to their families and peers. Their grief threatens to destroy their lives. They're absolutely deconstructing. Their grief is hard to watch but compelling nonetheless.

I have so many feels about THE BEAUTY THAT REMAINS. I'm still processing my thoughts and while I'll try my best to write them out as a review, I know I will not do the story justice. The focus of the story is on Logan, Autumn, and Shay. While all three experience a loss of someone very close to them, Woodfolk beautifully manages to give them each a distinct voice and weaves their stories together naturally without it feeling contrived. There isn't a right or wrong way to grieve. There is only going through it.

While they each navigated their grief Logan, Autumn, and Shay also had a connection to a popular local band. I really enjoyed this side of the story. That is what ultimately brought them together. They just had to find their own way there.

Well done. Looking forward to seeing what Ashley Woodfolk has in store for us in her next release.

*eARC kindly provided by Random House Children's via NetGalley*

This book was SO GOOD, guys. It’s told in three points of view. Autumn, who lost her best friend. Logan, who lost his ex-boyfriend. And Shay, who lost her twin sister. Three characters going through their own stages of grief, in very similar and different ways. But the multi-POV didn’t *quite* work for me because I ended up caring about Shay the most, and hardest, of the three. I just found myself relating a lot to her thought processes and personality. But I did like Autumn a lot, too. The only one that I felt sort of meh about was Logan? He wasn’t a bad character by any means, and I understood how he mourned. But there was something about him I didn’t care for. Yet, all three of them had distinct voices, which is difficult to do in 1st person. And I enjoyed seeing their journeys. While not always making the best choices, they did what they could to survive in a world without their people. But they weren’t alone.


I’m completely surrounded by them in the best group hug I’ve ever been a part of, and we’re all ugly crying--big, gulping sobs.

I still want my sister desperately. I think I always will. And though the weight of this kind of love won’t replace her, it might just make it so that I’m a little closer to okay.


By far, my favorite part of this book were the relationships between the three main characters and their closest friends and family. It takes a village to heal, it really does. I loved how realistic everything felt too. The anger and mistakes made, the pulling away and shutting people out. Logan, Autumn, and Shay weren’t perfect. Far from it. They didn’t know how to always grieve in a way that didn’t hurt others or make them feel so alone. But they had tribes of people. Parents and siblings, friends and lovers. People who would stage an intervention to get them help; people who would tell them over and over again that it’s okay not to be okay. They were safe spaces for the MCs to mourn without feeling like they had to perform or act a certain way. I loved so many of them, but especially Shay’s friends Rohan, Deedee, Callie, and Jerome. I think Logan was the only one who didn’t really have a group, but he had people who cared about him and who just wanted him to be okay too.

This book was, at its heart, about grief and what it does to you, about the soul-shattering kind of pain that can render you breathless at any point in time, no matter how long it’s been. It was also about friendship, and love. That kind of love that may shake and stir, but that will always stay true, and the moments when you find your people. And it was about music. While seemingly random, the three teenagers are connected by a broken-up band called Unraveling Lovely. And their stories unfold to a point that made me so happy, because it was like every group, every minor character in Logan’s, Autumn’s, and Shay’s lives, became one big tribe together. It was so emotional and lovely!

The Beauty That Remains was a strong debut, and I’m very much looking forward to future Ashley Woodfolk stories!

Holy shit. Tears and more tears! I mean, goddamn this book wrecked me. I revisited the loss of my mother and the process of grieving for her and I absolutely feel more at peace about all of that for having lived this book. It was just an exercise in reading through tears, truly. I don’t know that I have ever felt my heart squeeze so profoundly while reading either...again and again and again. I had so many moments of clarity, too, about grief and how it will never stop, but will, instead, transform and change. This was not an easy read, but I loved every moment of it. Every. Single. Moment.

I absolutely adore the diversity of this book! Overall I didn't feel like there was quite enough substance to the story. I'm sure it's tricky to write about grief without become redundant so I applaud the autho for attempting to portray 3 characters very different ways of grieving. The writing was lovely but I still felt emotionally detached. This was a strong debut but not my favorite. I'll still be picking up the authors next book as soon as it comes out!

If someone asked now, “What does love look like?” I’d tell them it was the lies in your eyes.

Books centred on tragedies usually fall in one of three categories for me – either the fall completely flat, or they leave me curled up in under my blanket sobbing my eyes out or they devastate me, and still leave me with hope.

The Beauty That Remains definitely left me in the last category. Ashley Woodfolk’s deep and haunting debut novel reminded me of Adam Silvera’s writing, along with one of my favourite elements in books (that we rarely see) – music – and I fell in love with it.

MY THOUGHTS:

1. I love way this book was told. We had three narrators, and some incredibly developed secondary characters, each of whom were experiencing the devastating loss of a friend, ex or sister and it was their journey to reaching some kind of acceptance, through music.

2. I struggled to keep up with all the characters in the beginning of this book. All of them were equally important from each narrator, to the person they each lost, to their support systems, but THERE WERE TOO MANY PEOPLE thrown at me in the beginning.

3. Ashley Woodfolk’s writing was spectacular. It was slow paced, but really dove into the unbearable grief each teenager felt. It was heart-breaking, poignant and I am A HUGE FAN.

4. The cast was diverse and inclusive and I LOVED IT. Just off the top of my head, we had Asian rep, Hispanic rep and Gay rep and it dealt with depression, coping mechanisms, therapy and panic attacks with such finesse.

5. I honestly connected with Logan and Bram’s story right from the get go, and I was desperately craving more.

6. The only reason this book isn’t receiving a five star rating from me was that there was no definitive ending. I understand that you never truly finish grieving, but this book felt unfinished in a way I can’t fully explain.

A spectacularly written book on loss that will make you feel. 4 stars.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Delacorte Press for providing me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Trigger Warnings: Death of a sibling, death of a best friend, death of an ex-boyfriend, suicide, leukemia, alcoholism, mentions of drug dealing, marijuana use, death of a queer character.

Plot: Told from the perspective of three teenagers, all of whom have experienced the loss of a loved one. Autumn lost her best friend, Shay her twin sister, and Logan the boy he loved. They’re navigating grief each their own way, and are reunited by their love for one band’s music.

I often hear about how people find contemporary novels formulaic and clichéd, and while a lot of it boils down to taste, I think some it also depends on the kind of contemporary novels people are reaching out to read. For skeptics of the genre, I invite you to give Ashley Woodfolk’s debut YA novel a shot. It tackles grief in such a profound way while delving into the many complicated and flawed things that make us so human.

The three main characters, along with the secondary characters, are all linked to each other via their connections to a local indie band called Unraveling Lovely. Autumn’s best friend Tavia dies in a car accident while driving to a party, and Autumn is racked with guilt because she was supposed to accompany her to the party and chose not to at the last minute. Her coping mechanism involves spending all her time she can at Tavia’s house, particularly with Tavia’s brother Dante, and emailing her constantly. Her grief seems immeasurable and she doesn’t think anyone else’s, not even Dante’s, can even compare. Shay’s left ‘twinless’ after losing her sister Sasha, who’d succumbed to the leukemia she’d been suffering with since the age of 11. The twins, along with a couple of their friends run a music reviewing blog, and Sasha is constantly reminded of Shay from every queued blog post, and every time someone else, including their mother, looks at her. Like Autumn, she’s in place where she feels nobody can possibly understand what she’s going through. Logan struggles with grief and guilt over the loss of his ex-boyfriend Bram, and blames himself for some things he said to him as their relationship was ending. He feels responsible and struggles with a lot of “what ifs”, wondering if he’d contributed to Bram’s depression and consequent death by suicide. Logan’s depression lead him to alcoholism that resulted in the breaking up of Unraveling Lovely, of which he was a member. Now, he harbors resentment for Bram’s girlfriend Yara and leans on watching Bram’s vlogs as he grieves for the person he loves.

The three teens are narrators of their own stories, and while their losses are separate, their grief brings them together. As the stories develop, we’re shown how their lives overlap and intersect. They each lean on their love for music, even when sometimes it doesn’t seem enough. This is a poignant thread that ties together all of them and the book itself, as the characters otherwise don’t have anything else holding them together. However, the story in itself such an emotional and captivating one, and I think these connections, fragile as they are, just speak to how grieving can be both an individual and universal experience all at once.

The writing style in itself is pretty simplistic- lots of short sentences with strong, distinguishable narrators. I thought this worked well for a story that was fraught with so many emotions and the writing didn’t distract from that. In the end, you’re not left with characters that are completely healed with all their issues resolved and closure experienced, rather, you’re shown the significant effects of the tiny steps taken towards the beginnings of their healing process, with the help of good and necessary support systems. These strong themes of love, loss, pain, and hope will surely resonate with the book’s target audience, many of whom need books like these to feel a little less alone as they navigate a complicated world and tumultuous emotional spaces.

Overall, a phenomenally strong debut offering a perspective on grief that stays with you even after you’ve finished reading the book. If you’ve known me a while you know that I inhale stories that tackle grief, loss, and pain, especially realistic stories, so this book was tailor-made for me and has officially made it high up the favorites-of-2018 list. Fans of Adam Silvera and Nina LaCour, consider this me shoving this book in your hands.

'Then we just set there, silent and lonely for you together, because hellos are nice and neat and so much easier than goodbyes'.

The debut novel by Ashley Woodfolk, The Beauty that Remains published by Delacorte Press is a poetic story written and told for the teenagers facing nowadays death more openly and frequently that it used to happen not as far as ten years ago. Shared through social media, death, including in its violent form, is more obtrusive and visually common nowadays, but the pain and mystery surrounding death remains. Regardless the age, we still cope with understanding death, and when young people at the beginning of their lives are taken away, often violently, the words are silent. We are trying to replace their absence through memories, Instagram pictures or emotions. And there is also music, as a way in which the protagonists of the stories of love and life after loss in the book are trying to fill up the void of the friends who are no more. More than words that are lying - 'Lying is the new language we speak. It's the only way we can talk at all' - , music is a way to continue telling the story, in the best, strongly emotional way. Each and every particular story shared is full of emotions and impressive in its simplicity, while connecting the dots of the hardships of advancing through adulthood.

The perspective shared are belonging completely of teenagers as the aimed audience is made of them. Maybe as adults we may find a lot of the stories and the pace unattractive, but once we keep in mind the aimed audience, we will realize that in fact it makes a lot of sense to just put on the side the over-critical perspective given probably also by the life experince and focus on the emotional challenges of the young adults coping with the loss of someone they love, the same age as them, not necessarily family. The feeling of breaking up while challanged by the lack of answers because life is still too young to offer the necessary emotional and intellectual support to create our own support stories. If we keep in mind that reference, we will clearly appreciate the fine and elegant writing of Ashley Woodfolk, which makes the book a great addition to a reading list for teenagers, because it calibrates the voice and the messages to young people looking for way too many answers to painful questions.

Woodfolk succeeded to be well connected to the realities, without neglecting the quality of the writing and with the promise of creating even more such beautiful books. The Beauty that Remains is that kind of book that will for sure keep your young adult a little bit away from social media or that will at least prompt them to create a meaningul Instagram post.