Usborne snaps up feminist dystopian YA from Holly Bourne

Usborne has snapped up You Could Be So Pretty, a dystopian YA novel from Holly Bourne that will publish on 28th September in paperback. Usborne fiction director Rebecca Hill and senior commissioning editor Sarah Stewart acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) from Madeleine Milburn at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency.

You Could Be So Pretty is described by Usborne as a “dissection of the beauty industry, with the shocking insight of The Beauty Myth and the compulsive tension of Uglies and The Handmaid’s Tale”. In the book, Bourne explores modern beauty standards and the pressures faced by young women today.

Bourne is an author of young adult and adult fiction, and has been shortlisted for the YA Book Prize four times. She has worked at a youth charity where she helped young people with their relationships and mental health, and started writing teen fiction with the aim of educating young people about feminism and relationships.

Bourne said: “You Could Be So Pretty is a new direction for my YA and it’s been such a blast to write, yet explores important issues that I’ve wanted to cover for years. I hope it will open minds and start vital conversations among young people.”

Hill commented: “I remember sitting in a meeting when Holly discussed her idea for You Could Be So Pretty. Instantly, we all knew this book felt like a game-changer. Clever and provocative and just a little bit terrifying, Holly has written a powerful, compulsive, dystopian novel that holds a rare transformative power.”

Milburn added: “I still recall the day when Holly shared her idea with us. I immediately felt that this was something unlike anything we had seen before, touching on crucial issues and the issues faced by young women today.”