Short Synopsis
At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit.

Full Synopsis
"I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison."

At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit. Vividly portraying the pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasures of wanting to be special, Grealy captures with unique insight what it is like as a child and young adult to be torn between two warring impulses: to feel that more than anything else we want to be loved for who we are, while wishing desperately and secretly to be perfect.

"This harrowing, lyrical autobiographical memoir . . . is a striking meditation on the distorting effects of our culture's preoccupation with physical beauty." ---Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"Grealy writes with a poet's lyric grace" ---Library Journal

"[Lucy Grealy] writes about her experience with dignity, precision, and wisdom." ---Booklist Starred Review

"A strong debut." ---Kirkus

"[Autobiography of a Face is] a young woman's first book, the story of her own life, and both book and life are unforgettable." ---New York Times

"Engaging and engrossing" ---The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly Review

Booklist Review

New York Times Bestseller