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catbrigand's review
3.0
I’ve thought a lot about this book since I read it, especially since finding an op-ed by her older sister Suellen about this book, Ann Patchett’s memoir, and public grief. This book is not pleasant. It may shock you to know that a book about childhood cancer is unpleasant. But it’s also wholly inappropriate to examine motives and situations through only one lens—my copy of the book had reading guide questions about Lucy’s mother’s fitness, as if we in our healthy 21st century lives can make a judgment call about a woman presented through her daughter’s eyes.
book_concierge's review
4.0
Lucy Grealy was nine years old when she was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer, in her right jaw. The surgery and chemo helped save her life but left her with disfiguring scars.
What is more important to your sense of self than to recognize yourself in the mirror? What if the face you saw in the mirror was one you could not bear to look at? A face that could not possibly reflect the you inside?
Grealy became a renowned poet, and her way with words shows here. She writes so eloquently and honestly about what she went through and how she felt growing up “ugly.” She writes about being the “special” kid in a family of four, getting more of her parents’ attention, skipping school, good friends, how she dealt with bullies, and how she became addicted to the pain killers she was prescribed following major surgery. Her life was not all tragic, however; she also remembers moments of joy and humorous escapades.
The memoir was first published in 1994. The edition I had included an afterword written after Grealy’s death in 2002, by her friend and fellow Iowa Writers Workshop student, Ann Patchett.
What is more important to your sense of self than to recognize yourself in the mirror? What if the face you saw in the mirror was one you could not bear to look at? A face that could not possibly reflect the you inside?
Grealy became a renowned poet, and her way with words shows here. She writes so eloquently and honestly about what she went through and how she felt growing up “ugly.” She writes about being the “special” kid in a family of four, getting more of her parents’ attention, skipping school, good friends, how she dealt with bullies, and how she became addicted to the pain killers she was prescribed following major surgery. Her life was not all tragic, however; she also remembers moments of joy and humorous escapades.
The memoir was first published in 1994. The edition I had included an afterword written after Grealy’s death in 2002, by her friend and fellow Iowa Writers Workshop student, Ann Patchett.
alidottie's review
3.0
This was a well written, moving story that made me think back on my own childhood/adolesence and how many things I took and even still take for granted.
amoskane's review
5.0
I like feeling like I know Lucy Grealy; the little bit that I do. She makes me less afraid of hospital rooms and more interested in understanding myself as I might appear as a character in my own book.
I think this is a work of extreme discipline: she managed to write an autobiography, as she claims, of her face. Its not an exploration of her relationship with her mother, her intense inner life, her coming of age, the meaning of art or of sex or of sickness. It is all those things, but it resonates as something so much more. It's about how a person struggles to live inside a piece of meat; and how a piece of meat struggles to hold and resemble a person.
I think this is a work of extreme discipline: she managed to write an autobiography, as she claims, of her face. Its not an exploration of her relationship with her mother, her intense inner life, her coming of age, the meaning of art or of sex or of sickness. It is all those things, but it resonates as something so much more. It's about how a person struggles to live inside a piece of meat; and how a piece of meat struggles to hold and resemble a person.
juliabodson's review
3.0
This book really upset and disturbed me. Grealy is a good storyteller, but I wonder if it wasn't the right time for me to know this story. I'm dampening many of my thoughts and feelings about this memoir because they're too upsetting.