Book: Beautiful Stranger by Hope Donahue

Indonesian title: Beautiful Stranger—obsesi seorang remaja untuk tampil cantik dan sempurna melalui berbagai bedah plastik
415 pages, August 2005; Gramedia Pustaka Utama

After a long long journey, I’ve managed to finish this book. It first caught my eyes, after I watched the first season of Nip/Tuck (TV Series). I wanted to know more about plastic surgeries, what drive people to do them, and so on.

The Indonesian version’s cover was really catchy, definitely tickled my interest to read it. Sadly, the content of the book did not have the same effect. First of all, I didn’t expect tons and tons of self-indulging monologues. Second, the timeline of the story was felt kind of like a haze; I didn’t know at what age she was when telling the A story, or when did this B story happen? After the A or before it? I mean, just because you’re telling a story of a mix-up person, can you really used a mix-up storyline and expect the readers will just follow without raising an eyebrow out of confusion? Third, I didn’t felt the emotion; well, not all blank but still too little to mention. For a Real Life book, aren’t you supposed to felt what the author felt? Went to the places he/she went? Though this maybe caused by the translation process.

Out of 415 pages, the reader was dragged into Hope’s world of emptiness chaos, caused by—I think—lack of confidence, the need to look perfect, the loss if not looking beautiful, the search of love and acknowledgement, in the prior 350 pages; the part where the something that resemble the resolution only came after that, at the last 65 pages. So it’s like holding your breath for the longest time, but then when the chance of exhaling came, it didn’t last long, leaving you rather unsatisfied—wanted to use the word “strangled”, but felt it would be too much.

I didn’t get what I want from this book, but I have to say that I like the parts where she described her feeling before and after the surgeries. And I’m so glad that she finally decided to remove the silicon in her breasts. I agree it was a good start for her recovery, and admire her for admitting that the end of this book couldn’t be the Hollywood’s type of ending because she is now still struggling to get better.