In this book, beauty is truth, and truth guides the course of our lives. By refusing to accept other people’s assumptions over her assessment of herself, she ends up getting a seat to watch the show up close and personal-on the edge of the stage!

One of my favorite scenes comes after a low point (I’ll be a little vague to avoid a spoiler) when it seems that strangers have removed her from a show “for her own good.” She insists that she is fine and that her choice to stay is honored. Along the way, Jones discovers a way to transcend the judgment of others. In Italy, she is moved by art, opera, and Beyoncé in America, by fleeting communion with Peter Dinklage and the athletic grace of Roger Federer in Cambodia, by the disparity between the tourist-filled Killing Fields and the private grief of her tuk tuk driver. But a high school friend informs her, “No man will want to date you unless he, too, is desperate or ugly.” When she wonders if she gets to have a say about the meaning of her own life, another man states, “Beauty is what we’re told is beautiful and what we’re told becomes the truth.” According to him, no one gets a say.įed up with this cycle, Jones begins to chase experiences around the world as if her life depends on it (perhaps it does). To Jones, her body is normal because it is all she has ever known. It is an infinity mirror, reflecting and distorting the view of who she is as a person. This, in turn, affects how they treat her, which affects the way she sees herself, which affects how she acts, which affects how the world reacts to her. Jones is “born a ball of twisted muscle and tucked bone” with a rare condition called sacral agenesis-the bottom part of her spine is incomplete-causing consistent pain, stunting her height, and decreasing her mobility, all of which affects the way people see her. “That will be their first and only thought about you…They will not attempt a second thought.”

“Some people are going to look at your body and see that something’s wrong,” her mom tells her. Peers debate the value of her life, strangers stop and stare, and doctors announced that she will never have a normal life. For Chloé Cooper Jones, author of the memoir Easy Beauty, life is an endless experience of being studied by others. In many ways, we are all defined by the people around us. I am more than labels can contain, but I am labeled. I am a checkmark on a census report, a goal on a diversity dashboard, and a notch on a bedpost. I am a woman, Asian, with average height, and average weight, with symmetrical features.

Chloe cooper jones easy beauty review