A YA horror-thriller-romance retelling of The Picture of Dorian Gray by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Infinite Fates, featuring a never-before-heard bonus chapter!
Penny Paxton is the daughter of an icon. Her supermodel mother has legions of adoring fans around the world, and Penny is ready to begin her journey to international adoration, starting with joining the elite Dorian Drama School. When Penny’s new mentor offers her an opportunity she cannot refuse, to have a portrait painted by a mysterious artist who can grant immortal beauty to all his subjects, Penny happily follows in the footsteps of Dorian’s most glittering alumni, knowing that stardom is sure to soon be hers. But when her trusted mentor is found murdered, Penny realises she’s made a terrible mistake – a sinister someone is using the uncanny portraits to kill off the subjects one by one. As more perfectly beautiful students start to fall, Penny knows her time is running out . . . A seductive and searing exploration of beauty, identity, and what the pursuit of perfection can truly cost.
A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books
Penny Paxton is the daughter of an icon. Her supermodel mother has legions of adoring fans around the world, and Penny is ready to begin her journey to international adoration, starting with joining the elite Dorian Drama School. When Penny’s new mentor offers her an opportunity she cannot refuse, to have a portrait painted by a mysterious artist who can grant immortal beauty to all his subjects, Penny happily follows in the footsteps of Dorian’s most glittering alumni, knowing that stardom is sure to soon be hers. But when her trusted mentor is found murdered, Penny realises she’s made a terrible mistake – a sinister someone is using the uncanny portraits to kill off the subjects one by one. As more perfectly beautiful students start to fall, Penny knows her time is running out . . . A seductive and searing exploration of beauty, identity, and what the pursuit of perfection can truly cost.
A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books
Title: Every Exquisite Thing
Author: Laura Steven
Publisher: Macmillan Audio/Wednesday Books
Expected Publication Date: May 26, 2025
Review
Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for providing me with an audio version of this title to listen to and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
This is my second book by this author and I think it solidifies that I'm just not a fan of her writing. It's possible the audio may have added to this. I liked the narrator, Felicity Bown, enough. She sounded familiar to me but when I tried to find other books she narrated that I may have listened to, I could not find any. She was rather flat throughout the story. I just didn't feel the character's emotions at all and it made it very hard to connect with the character. I need someone who was more engaging and she was not it.
I love a good reimagining as much as the next person. And The Picture of Dorian Gray was a great choice. I love this story and my expectations for it being redone were high. This book did have those elements for sure. Steven did fairly well incorporating those things and allowing me to see the connection. However it lacked any depth. Dorian Gray explores elements of beauty, self-destruction, societal pressures, and corruption. This book glosses over those things at most.
Penny was nothing special for me as a character. She's deeply flawed and I did feel that part immensely. But I really didn't connect with her at all. She didn't have anything particularly interesting happening throughout the book. Even by 50% through I just did not care what happened to her or why it was happening. Her relationships with friends and family didn't lend much to the story either. I honestly didn't really know any of them well enough to see how they would contribute to the importance of her story. They felt flat and uninteresting and were barely developed.
Dark academia is one of my favorite genres. When I see it in a blurb, I'm almost guaranteed to give the story a try. This one definitely fit that narrative. It's one of the reasons I chose to request it. The world building is there but not expansive at all. Steven introduces some supernatural elements (not surprising considering the story's reimagined origin) but I needed to understand it more. I needed to see where it came from earlier on in the story but Steven was more concerned with the mystery happening than providing this background. How did the magical elements introduced come about? Besides Dorian, are there other places this exists? There is also a rivalry with Penny and her classmate Devina that gave the story some interest but overall I didn't really feel their push and pull. We are just told about it being there rather than it truly being shown to build the story.
This is also listed as a murder mystery thriller with horror and romantic elements. While I see the author tried to include those elements through the eyes of the underlying story line, I didn't really find anything horrific about the plot or what happened to the characters. It's definitely more of a mystery than anything else. I didn't even feel the thriller part of the story. Nothing had me gripping my seat or set my heart racing. As for the romance, meh. There is no chemistry with the characters and it just didn't seem like it was important to even include it in the story. The story tried to be too many things at once for me rather than focusing on the more important elements of the mystery. This caused the pacing to be uneven and even clunky at times.
The book uses body dysmorphia and eating disorders as they underlying reason Penny seeks out the Masked Painter and immortalizes herself this way. It's explored enough to show how terrible this disease can be. There are many moments where her starving herself play a roll in helping to shape her character. But Penny is only telling us these things, we are never shown the horrors of what this all actually means for the character.
Overall, not enough happened in this book to keep my interest. The connection to The Picture of Dorian Gray set my expectations high so I expected a lot from this but it was sorely missed. I was bored for most of the tale and found myself drifting off only to come back and rewind to find I really didn't miss anything important. I wish the characters were more fleshed out, the world was built out so we could understand it more, and the motivations of the characters a little more clear. I think many will enjoy this story, especially if their knowledge of Dorian Gray is not expansive or non-existent. It's solidly a YA tale. And,. given the ratings I am seeing, I definitely think I'm in the minority for not enjoying this one. I do think that many teens will connect with Penny on the levels that are intended given her obsession with her body, pressure for being a certain way, claiming true identity, and beauty standards since this is so prevalent in our society today.
Author:
Laura Steven is an author and journalist from the northernmost town in England. She has published several books for young adults—such as the bestselling Every Exquisite Thing, YA Book Prize-shortlisted The Society for Soulless Girls, and CWIP award-winning The Exact Opposite of Okay—many of which have been widely translated and optioned for TV and film. When she’s not writing, you can probably find her trail running, reading chunky fantasy novels, baking cookies, playing old men at chess, or ignoring her husband and son to perfect her Stardew Valley farm. You can find her on Instagram at @laurasteven and TikTok at @authorlaurasteven.
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