A face for Picasso :

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Title :

A face for Picasso : coming of age with Crouzon syndrome / Ariel Henley.

Title:

A face for Picasso :

Author:

Henley, Ariel, 1991-

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

378 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

ISBN:

9780374314071

Production / Publication Information:

New York : Farrar Straus Giroux,, 2021.

Summary:

"A YA nonfiction story about Ariel and her twin sister's experience living with Crouzon Syndrome"--Provided by publisher.

Bibliography note:

Includes bibliographical references.

Target audience note:

Ages 12-18

Language:

English

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Personal Subject:

Henley, Ariel, 1991--Health-Juvenile literature.

Henley, Ariel, 1991--Health.

Subject Term:

Craniofacial dysostosis -- Patients -- Biography -- Juvenile literature.

Craniofacial dysostosis -- Patients -- Biography.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library	BIOGRAPHY HENLEY, AR. / TEEN	31330009101167	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Amesbury Public Library	YA B HENLEY	32114002690999	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Burlington Public Library	YA BIO HENLEY	32116003865629	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Dracut - Moses Greeley Parker Memorial Library	YA/BIO/HENLEY, A.	31482002997289	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Georgetown Peabody Library	YA B HENLEY	32120001365855	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Groveland - Langley-Adams Library	B HENLEY	32121000911541	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Hamilton-Wenham Public Library	Y B HENLEY, ARIEL	30470001954022	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Haverhill Public Library	YA/BIOG/HENLEY FAMILY	31479007091613	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Ipswich Public Library	YA 921 HENLEY, ARIEL	32122002929515	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Lawrence Public Library	BIO HEN YA	31549004902978	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Littleton - Reuben Hoar Library	YA 92 HENLEY	39965002374220	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Lowell - Pollard Memorial Library	YA B HENLEY, A.	31481005679373	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Methuen - Nevins Memorial Library	YA B HENLEY, A.	31548003383503	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Newbury Town Library	YA 92 HEN	32127001309635	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... North Andover - Stevens Memorial Library	TEEN PEO HENLEY	31478010207075	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Rowley Public Library	YA 921 HEN	32130001015665	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Tewksbury Public Library	TEEN B HENLEY	32132003299669	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Tyngsborough Public Library	YA/B/HENLE	32137002172429	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Westford - J.V. Fletcher Library	YA B HENLEY	31990005059683	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Wilmington Memorial Library	TEEN MEMOIR HENLEY	32136003513631	Searching... Unknown

A Schneider Family Book Award Honor Book for Teens

"Raw and unflinching . . . A must-read!" --Marieke Nijkamp, #1 New York Times -bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends

"[It] cuts to the heart of our bogus ideas of beauty." -Scott Westerfeld, #1 New York Times -bestselling author of Uglies

I am ugly. There's a mathematical equation to prove it.

At only eight months old, identical twin sisters Ariel and Zan were diagnosed with Crouzon syndrome -- a rare condition where the bones in the head fuse prematurely. They were the first twins known to survive it.

Growing up, Ariel and her sister endured numerous appearance-altering procedures. Surgeons would break the bones in their heads and faces to make room for their growing organs. While the physical aspect of their condition was painful, it was nothing compared to the emotional toll of navigating life with a facial disfigurement.

Ariel explores beauty and identity in her young-adult memoir about resilience, sisterhood, and the strength it takes to put your life, and yourself, back together time and time again.

Reviews (4)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 8 Up--Henley weaves a memoir of a journey to finding one's identity, while dealing with a life of raw physical and emotional pain. Born with Crouzon syndrome, a condition where the bones of the head fuse prematurely, Ariel and her twin sister, Zan, grew up under an umbrella of burden: the perpetual hostility of a society with strict beauty standards and the endless stream of life-saving facial surgeries. Told in segments, this memoir moves readers through Ariel's early childhood into the overwhelming middle school experience, which is marked by trauma but also resiliency, and then into her late-teen early college years, where she finally allows herself to break from the mold of external influence. Henley effortlessly explores the immense societal importance of striving toward unobtainable beauty standards and the authentic consequences for those who seemingly fall short of it. The book also touches on eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, and anger issues. With a perceptive analysis of the way beauty standards shape the most basic social values and a fascinating coming-of-age story told from a unique perspective, Henley's memoir is not to be missed. VERDICT Captivating, unflinching, and insightful, this title is highly recommend.--Jessica Manafi Brits

Publisher's Weekly Review

Using the life and work of Picasso as a framing device, debut memoirist Henley--a white woman born with Crouzon syndrome, a rare "craniofacial condition where the bones in the head don't grow"--writes about "beauty through a lens of disfigurement." After Henley and her twin sister were both born with the syndrome, a series of life-saving and aesthetic surgeries performed throughout their California childhood drastically altered their appearances, leaving Ariel feeling alienated from both her body and a society that others people with facial disfigurements. Exploring experiences of discrimination, emotional turmoil, and an eating disorder, her observations--especially concerning Picasso's misogyny and ableism, the way the two attitudes intersect, and the ways she's seen them mirrored in society--are complex and searing. She acknowledges in the prologue that beauty standards are not only ableist but racist, and discusses extensively how fatphobia exacerbated the prejudice she faced. This smart, richly detailed memoir is a compelling meditation on identity as well as a much-needed challenge to an ableist system. Ages 12--up. (Nov.)

Kirkus Review

This memoir of a young White woman with Crouzon syndrome explores growing up with facial differences in an ableist, beauty-obsessed society. Ariel and her twin sister, Zan, were born with a rare condition that affected the growth of their skull bones. Crouzon syndrome not only has medical repercussions--Zan and Ariel have seizures and problems with breathing, hearing, and vision--but a profound influence on the way the sisters look. From infancy, they were treated by physicians who were excited at the chance to work with such a rare condition and who sometimes couldn't distinguish between aesthetic and medical motivations. As Ariel shows in her narration of the story of their childhood and adolescence, every milestone was touched not just by health difficulties and prejudice, but by the constant, ongoing surgeries the twins underwent beginning when they were 8 months old. In Ariel's thoughtful and poignant telling, her own emerging awareness of and realizations about Western beauty standards didn't change how she wanted to be perceived by the world; internalized fatphobia may seem almost mundane amid all this trauma, but the mistreatment resulting from "being fat and disfigured" ends up causing just as real a crisis. Though many events feel only loosely connected and the work reads almost like a series of essays, a narrative about Pablo Picasso and cubism ties together many otherwise fragmentary episodes. Memoir as recovery: deeply thoughtful and eschewing too-tidy conclusions. (author's note, sources, reading list) (Memoir. 12-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

ldquo;Their faces resembled the work of Picasso." This line, from a French magazine article written about Ariel Henley and her twin sister, Zan, haunts Ariel throughout her affecting and unflinchingly honest memoir. The book is an exploration of -Ariel's--and by extension, her sister Zan's--childhood, up through the start of college, and the discrimination and ableism they experienced as a result of having a facial disfigurement. Ariel and Zan were born with a rare condition called Crouzon syndrome, which meant they spent their childhoods having recurring invasive, and often life-saving, facial surgeries. Ariel's first-person perspective, separated into three sections (Before, After, and Healing), is expertly crafted, infused with emotional resonance and populated with flawed characters who grow and change as the story unfolds. Ariel's richly detailed perspective allows the reader to deeply understand the trauma of experiencing so many difficult medical procedures, as well as the lifelong impact of bullying and discrimination. Society's obsession with traditional beauty standards and thinness causes Ariel to struggle with an eating disorder and to oscillate between shame about her appearance and defiant confidence in the face of blatant ableism. Her exploration of how these experiences shaped her is empowering without veering into corny, and the Healing section feels earned after so many chapters of watching her develop into a young woman who refuses to be defined solely by her facial difference. Instead of allowing an early comparison to Picasso to continue to haunt her, Ariel reclaims her narrative and, in doing so, writes a memoir that sets her free. A must-read on self-love, beauty, disability, visibility, and community.