“Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them.”
Having suffered from Ewing's sarcoma as a child, Lucy was left disfigured and also emotionally impacted by the condition. The assertion refers to how that brief moment in her childhood dictated every aspect of her life since. Her entire life was impacted from an early age into her adulthood. Her disfigurement brought on insecurities regarding her looks since other people would make her self-conscious of her appearance. Furthermore, her illness impacted her family particularly her parents who sought coping mechanisms due to the financial constraints and emotional impact.
“Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people...”
As a victim of harassment and bullying when she was a child, Lucy recognizes how people’s opinions and insults can significantly impact an individual. She gradually becomes self-conscious throughout her adolescence from either the overt looks from fellow kids or subtle stares from adults. Lucy highlights the different reactions or comments from people that affected her psychologically. She grasps that self-confidence is something that is mostly fostered by how other people view us rather than how we view ourselves. Thus, as an individual insulted or pitied by others she discerns how humans constantly do not realize to what extent they really affect others.
“Beauty, as defined by society at large, seemed to be only about who was best at looking like everyone else.”
Self-image is the main motif in the narrative. Akin to the title, the story is about appearance and captures the impact of looking different. The standard of beauty is a subject that Lucy frequently touches on in her novel as she has been judged or pitied all her life due to her appearance. Lucy has had to suffer through the sad truth about humanity, that we equate self-worth to beauty. Her appearance rendered her as ‘ugly’ by beauty standards that are rather trivial and banal in nature. In the assertion, she points out the absurdity of these standards in that the ‘ultimate beauty’ is actually looking like every other person. In building her own confidence she had to learn to detest the simplistic meaning of beauty in society and fully embrace her own beauty.
