This verse novel is a look at Marilyn Monroe's life like none other. The format really brings to life the loss, desperation, and depression she faced. The faded photographs and images behind the poems are an eerie but beautiful companion to the words on the page. This book sent me down a rabbit hole of research. Any reader interested in Marilyn Monroe will love it, but it will also appeal to history enthusiasts and poetry-readers. Beautifully done.

i really enjoyed reading this book, it was a unique Marilyn Monroe book. I enjoyed the way the author writes and hope she does more books like this.

This turned out to be of far more substance than one may expect from a verse novel world's most legendary sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe--but that is in exact keeping with the truth of who she really was. Carole Boston Weatherford manages to include the entire span of Marilyn's life, from her childhood as an orphan with living parents to an ambitious young woman striving to make her own way in the world to the icon the world so idolized. And all the while, Marilyn felt no one truly knew who she was, deep down. Weatherford's poems bring Marilyn's inner turmoil to life in a beautiful and respectful way, one which diehard Marilyn fans and newbies alike can learn from and enjoy.

I've never really found Marilyn Monroe to be an especially interesting figure. At least, not before I read this book. I had no idea how fascinating I was going to find her story. Poverty, mental illness, abuse, desperation for recognition and affection, and eventually fame. That fame is actually a very small part of this narrative. The larger focus is on obstacles and people wanting her to conform to societal expectations. Expectations that matched nothing that she saw growing up, that must have felt no more realistic than the ideals of fame to young Norma. While the story is told in Marilyn's voice, it is surprisingly dispassionate, relaying events without speculating much about her deeper feelings towards them. A bit of a niche read but well worth a look

It was as if it was Marilyn Monroe herself speaking these words. It felt so in touch and personal that there were more than a few moments when I did have to remind myself that it was someone else’s work and not pages from her diary. It’s that personal touch and it’s easy flow that made it so captivating a read.

As both a classic movie and Marilyn Monroe fan I’m familiar with her story but this book telling it from her own perspective gave it so much more. Ever since her death, and most likely even before, people have talked about Marilyn Monroe, telling her story. And for once letting her (figuratively) tell it really shifts everything we do know. It gives the story and the icon more meaning to a point where we’re reminded that she was more than just an icon or sex symbol but just another girl trying to make it in the world despite everything she had to go through.

In my early teens, I was fascinated by Marilyn Monroe. I watched her movies, listened to her songs, bought books, and collected postcards. My favourite photographs of her were always those where she was less Marilyn Monroe and more Norma Jean; when she was younger, when she was in New York studying at the Actors Studio. The more natural, yet very obviously more vulnerable Marilyn, not hiding behind her Hollywood persona. This is the Marilyn you will find amongst the pages of this book. Her voice is pitch perfect, her story heart-wrenching, her pain vivid, pulsating through the text. Free verse allows readers to get so much closer to the narrator’s feelings. Everything feels more raw, less guarded.
A beautiful, harrowing piece of writing which made me fall in love with MM again (be prepared, as you are reading that you will want to google photos and video clips to document your reading).

Carole Boston Weatherford has made a career of telling the stories of prominent historical figures in a way that is both accessible and enjoyable for children and young adults. Weatherford's latest subject is the infamous Marilyn Monroe, née Norma Jeane Baker, who after a tumultuous and abusive upbringing, rose as a star in Hollywood, before her untimely death by overdose at the age of 36. Marilyn Monroe is known to this day as being a beautiful, voluptuous sex symbol, but Weatherford works to show a different side of Marilyn in her new novel, Beauty Mark: A Verse Novel of Marilyn Monroe.

Beauty Mark opens on young Norma Jeane's life with her mentally ill mother, being bounced around from home to home before becoming a teenage bride at the age of 16. After catching the eye of execs as a pin-up model, Marilyn earned bit part roles in films before her big break in Hollywood. Typically typecast in "blonde bombshell" roles, Marilyn cemented her place in history as a sex symbol of the Golden Age of Hollywood. But there was much more to Marilyn than what was shown on the big screen, and that's where Weatherford comes in.

Told in a series of verses, Beauty Mark gives a voice to Marilyn Monroe, allowing readers into her private thoughts and moments, and demonstrating that there was more substance to this woman than what has been portrayed in the media. This short little book is a testament to Marilyn and the work she put into her career, raising herself from her hardscrabble upbringing to becoming an unforgettable woman who is etched in hearts and history forever.

Beauty Mark is a unique and serious book, picking and choosing parts of Marilyn's personal life and covering much of her work in Hollywood. While I enjoyed this book, I also felt that Marilyn's voice and presence were distant throughout the novel, as if I were holding her at arm's length. I also found myself bored at times with the many film plot summaries sprinkled throughout the book. These sections of the novel provided little insight into Marilyn's life and could easily be researched on the Internet if one was interested. As a reader of a fictionalized account of someone's life, I would much prefer to hear the behind the scenes stories that are not common knowledge. The little tidbits of life and nuances of personality that help you get to know a famous figure on a more intimate level. This is what I feel Beauty Mark lacks.

Beauty Mark is recommended to lovers of biographical fiction, anyone who is interested in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and of course, those who are intrigued by the mysterious Marilyn Monroe.

Thank you to NetGalley & Candlewick Press for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

Beauty Mark is a superb collection of poetry depicting Marilyn Monroes life and told as from her own voice and perspective.

I thought the poetry was very in depth and dug down deep into Marilys life, experiences, youth, heartbreak, career, emotions and soul.

Marilyn had a troubled childhood moving from foster home to children's home and other homes and seeing her mother suffer from mental health problems all through her life.

This book tells how Norma Jean got through these times and her emotions through them all the way to her acting career, marriages and death.

I've always loved Marilyn Monroe and this book is a fantastic addition to my collection as well as being a great tribute to a beautiful troubled soul.

An interesting approach into recounting the tale of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn is one of those individuals I am sure pretty much everyone, at least in the Western world, knows something about and because of that her life is somewhat shrouded in mystery.

I think Beauty Mark is a very suitable read especially for younger readers eager to learn more about Marilyn as it sort of glosses over the more tragic stuff - drug use/addiction etc. I read Beauty Mark alongside Joyce Carol Oates's Blonde which was a very interesting experience.

Marilyn truly was one of a kind and it is unfortunate she never really got a chance to shine on her own terms.

As a lover of all things Marilyn Monroe, i loved and hated this book at the same time. Having to relive her hardships and pain. This was just mesmerizing look into her life. I could not resist and i had to finish it in one sitting. Miss Norma Jean will forever live on, but Marilyn will always be legendary iconic.

Beauty Mark is a collection of poems telling the story of Marilyn Monroe, covering her often-misunderstood life story from her youth in foster homes and orphanages to her transformation into Marilyn and her descent into addiction. With harrowing detail, Marilyn retells her life experiences and deconstructs the myth of her persona through a combination of free and rhymed verse. On the whole, I feel this work would be more powerful as a play than a collection of poetry, but the language was evocative and beautiful nonetheless.

Marilyn's story is heartbreaking but never glamorized. The beautiful language straddles the line between emotional and overly sentimental, and I must give the author credit for her ability to imply Marilyn's tragic death without relying on the historical tragedy for shock value. As a collection of poetry, it's middling; as a young adult historical fiction novel, however, I found it truly remarkable.

On the whole, I enjoyed the experience of reading this book. If you're interested in misunderstood historical figures, novels in verse, female-centered stories, and, of course, Marilyn Monroe, this novel in verse is well-worth your time.

I'm starting to notice more and more books in verse, and this one caught my eye because it's biographical about a real person, and I didn't know that much about the life of Marilyn Monroe, and the first few chapters were a shock to me, because I really didn't imagine her childhood to be so rough. These novels in verse aare really starting to grow on me.

I thank Netgalley and Candlewick Press for the digital ARC.

I've never really thought much about Marilyn Monroe past her movie star image. This well-researched and lyrically written book in verse gave an insight to a woman who is a beauty standard in the world. But she was so much more. Ms. Weatherford has done a fantastic job with this novel in verse. I have only ever read her picture books, but the audience for this book is definitely YA or above. What an intimate portrait of a woman who was an icon. But more importantly, as we see in the book, she was also a very layered person.

I love reading about Marilyn Monroe and Beauty Mark was no exception. I didn't learn anything new, but it was very well written and I think it can bring a whole new generation of people loving Marilyn!

Beauty Mark is a fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe, from her tumultuous childhood to her path to stardom. The book is written in verse, taking on Monroe’s inner voice and thoughts. Prior to reading the book, I didn’t know much about Monroe and have never watched any of her movies. I’ve seen a few iconic pictures of her, but my knowledge of the 1950s bombshell was limited. However, that didn’t stop me from picking up the book and finishing it in one sitting.

Growing up as Norma Jeane, Monroe was transported from foster home to foster home, and never had a stable family life. But she was a natural beauty, and after having a photo taken of her while at a factory, she was catapulted onto the road to Hollywood. From dying her hair to blonde to changing her name, Marilyn’s time in Hollywood wasn’t through rose-tainted windows. Battling anxiety and spiraling into drug addiction, she struggled with accepting what the industry wanted her to be and what she wanted for herself.

While reading the book, I found myself googling images of the naive Norma Jeane, her love interests and marriages, and the other strong actresses who co-starred among her (from the androgynous Marlene Dietrich to the femme-fatale Barbara Stanwyck). I was immersed in the 1950s era, wanting more. As I watched Marilyn Monroe’s acting for the first time, I was drawn in by her airy performance and her ease with acting as the gullible dumb blonde, but also aware of the turmoil that had plagued her.

Beauty Mark is a book that I didn’t realize I needed. It’s such a poignant retelling of the star’s life, in a lens that the public often fails to see. Marilyn’s narrative is so heartbreaking and moving, and it beckons you to see her in a different light.

I didn’t know much about Marilyn prior to reading this book. Anything, really, apart from her name and the well-known dress stunt. I was so surprised to see how hard her life was. Because of my ignorance, I only now came to realize that her life and career were pretty solid references for Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – which is one of my favorite books. This verse novel was absolutely beautiful. The poems were both dazzling and haunting. It was such an interesting way to structure a biography. Norma Jean (later to become Marilyn) was so cunning and driven. She wasn’t just a pretty face for people to admire. She played a façade she thought would help her get what she wanted, and succeeded beautifully at that. At a certain point in the poems, which are written as a first-person narrative, she even starts calling Marilyn as if she were someone else entirely. I grew to have so much respect for her ambition. She was so passionate about art and literature. I can only imagine how much people who have actually admired and known her for longer than I have will love this book more than I did. Absolutely genius!

I want to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and author Carole Boston Weatherford for providing me with an ARC of Beauty Mark!

What a gorgeous, gorgeous collection. I have always been a huge fan of Marilyn, so to see this cover was incredibly exciting. This was a beautiful re-telling of Marilyn's life, starting at her humble beginnings and ending at her tragic death. I do not have enough good to say about this one. It is everything I wanted it to be, and I hope anyone that has a minor (or major) interest in Monroe picks this up.

Thank you to those named above for the chance to read and review this novel!

Beauty Mark is a collection of poems retelling the life story of Marilyn Monroe, from her harrowing youth in several foster homes and orphanages, to her transformation from Norma Jeane into Marilyn, and her descent into addiction.

It is all told in first person, mostly in free verse (the couple of instances of rhymed verse become very impactful because of this), with visually descriptive language. Overall it feels more like a stage monologue to me, but then the language of poetry and plays have always overlapped.

Of course Monroe's story is heartbreaking, more than I knew. The book is geared toward teens, but I would've never known, it never reads like it. I do think hers is an important story, about a damaged individual that tried reclaiming her life, while fighting mental health problems and spiralling addiction.

Monroe's sad end isn't directly portrayed, more implied, and finally named in a found poem epilogue based on newspaper headlines up to present day.

If I have one gripe, it's with the illustrative backgrounds on the pages - it's all a bit grey and indistinct, more visual noise than illustration.

3.5 stars

4.5 Stars ( I received an e-arc from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review)

This was a gripping and beautiful way to tell expanded story of a female icon. While I know the basics about Marilyn Monore; such as her real name being Norma Jeane, her movie history and some of her romantic relationships, I learned quite a bit more. The mental health history with the women in her family and the struggle they faced. Her cycling from foster homes back to an orphanage, finding out she has a half sister and having to get married quite young to avoid being sent back to the orphanage. Then finding her independence through World War II by working in a factory and being discovered leading to her modeling career.. Which lead to her becoming a Hollywood actress and having to dye her hair that iconic blond. How she became typecast and the fight she goes through become viewed as a serious actress. Her two other marriages were highly publicized as both men were already in the spotlight. Documented through out is Marilyn's slow descent into addiction due her past trauma and anxiety. Telling her story through the form of verse definitely was a good choice and I flew through the novel in one day.

Thanks to Netgalley and Candlewick Press for providing a digital ARC of BEAUTY MARK in exchange for an honest review.

Marilyn Monroe's tragic story is told in verse and I could not have loved it more. This format allows the reader to truly connect with Marilyn and the turns her life took. I think it is an excellent format for teens and young adults, as well as adults. I thought I knew how I felt about Marilyn and her famous love stories and movies, but this book made me re-evaluate and see her as a real person. A quick read that I definitely recommend.