Autobiography of a Face

De: Lucy Grealy

Narrado por: Coleen Marlo

"I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent 15 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.

©1994 Lucy Grealy (P)2016 Tantor

Reseñas de la Crítica

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

Heartwrenching, but perspective building...

This is a tale that reminded me to appreciate the gifts of childhood that I squandered and recognize the impact my parents insecurities had on my judgment of myself. Powerful recollections from a human with awe inspiring strength.

Not at all how I remember this book

I read this book a decade ago and it has always stayed with me as a rebuttal (even though it came first) to Ann Patchetts memoir Truth and Beauty. In my mind it demonstrated how completely differently two people can experience the same thing. Ann P’s beautiful tribute described Lucy’s procrastinating on submitting her book and meeting deadlines. I remember that Lucy’s book contained a multitude of justifications for delaying her work and the opposite ways of looking at the same situation was interesting and human.

However, upon listening to it now, it was simply a long list of the surgeries and misery that Lucy Grealy endured and I didn’t find it at all interesting, surprising or enlightening. I’m a bit bewildered that the things I most loved about this book and remembered… are simply not there.
This isn’t a great listen unless you like to more yourself in surgical tales.

I never knew...

I was a high school classmate of Lucy and never knew the struggles she went through in her life...

A startling real and raw accounting.

A must read companion to Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchette. inside the mind and life of a true artist struggling to come to grips with illness, disfigurement and our cruel societal notions of beauty.

my love for Lucy...❤

I listened to Ann Patchett's book Turth and Beaty and This Is A Story Of A Happy Marriage that gave such a beautiful introduction into Lucy's life and struggles. I adore this reflection piece that Lucy, an incredible poet and written created to share with everyone the trials and grief she went through in her life. ❤