Autobiography of a Face

This book by Lucy Grealy came up once on Tim Ferriss in the episodes we index. That mention was a genuine on-air recommendation, not just a passing reference. The people who brought it up: Tim Ferriss. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.

Lucy Grealy's ruthless self-examination, rich fantasy life, and great derring-do inform this powerful memoir about the premium we put on beauty and on a woman's face in particular. It took Lucy twenty years of living with a distorted self-image and more than thirty reconstructive procedures before she could come to terms with her appearance after childhood surgery left her jaw disfigured. As a young girl she absorbed the searing pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasures of wanting to be special. Later she internalized the paralyzing fear of never being loved. Heroically and poignantly, she learned to define herself from the inside out.