Faceless

For my fourth blog book which I found on http://www.abbythelibrarian.com, I read "Faceless" by Alyssa Sheinmel. The book follows the life of the main character Maisie after she wakes up in the hospital. Maisie slowly remembers what happened to her, she was hit by lightening and suffered severe injuries. The worst of which is her face which has been completely burned off. Maisie looks and the mirror and sees a face that is not her own. She learns that she has received a face transplant and everyone tells her that she's very lucky. Maisie however feels like a monster and the story follows her struggle to come to grips with what she must now live with. Maisie's boyfriend Chirag stays with her but feels too uncomfortable to touch her which makes Maisie feel even more alienated. On top of this Maisie is no longer allowed to participate in any strenuous activity. This kills her as she is one of the star runners on the school's track team. She is also teased by her friends at school. All of these factors cause her to feel extremely out of place and hopeless. Maisie finds herself falling asleep in class because of the medication she must take and finds that she can't run even if she tries making her extremely depressed. Later in the story as their relationship becomes more and more distant Maisie also ends up breaking up with Chirag now feeling almost completely isolated. Eventually Maisie is driven to the point of suicide and stops taking her medication but soon realizes she has so much to live for. She goes to her senior prom, is reunited with Chirag and finally comes to grips with her new reality. This book was incredibly interesting and in my opinion borderline bizarre. The plot is definitely unique to anything I've read before and I thought it was great. I think the book really made me think about vanity and popularity and how we take it a bit too seriously. I liked that I could relate a bit to this book because that's something that I definitely did in high school before realizing that not trying to impress everyone and being yourself leads to a much happier life further down the road. I think that this book is very well written and carries a great message along with a great unique story.