Autobiography of a Face
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 pleasure 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 text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition.