All the Beautiful Girls: A Novel

Can you ever really overcome the loss of your innocence? That is the question posed from reading All the Beautiful Girlsby Elizabeth J. Church. When Lily Decker was in the third grade, she lost both of her parents and her sister to a tragic car crash where she was the lone survivor. She goes on to live with her aunt, her mother’s sister, and uncle. However, this is not a house of safety, love and happiness, and she doesn't remain an innocent child for long. She lives in this house until she is able to finally graduate from high school and move to Vegas to dance. Now a dancer at the Tropicana, life is a flash of glitter and lights and all of the attention that she never got as a child. As Ruby Wilde, she has to learn to live her life, but things don’t go quite the way that she planned. This book was very hard to read initially. Not because there is anything wrong with the book, but Lily experiences living with her aunt and uncle was just so heartbreaking. This young girl had already been through enough, why add more to her grief. I just rooted for Lily through the whole book. There are times in the book where you wish you could just be her friend or in her life to provide guidance. She really could have used it. This was a great book to read with the information and history of Vegas and the shows. Five Stars **Review by Nikki, Late Night Reviewer for Up All Night with Books**