Reviews for About Face: 25 Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror

The average rating for About Face: 25 Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-09-10 00:00:00 Sharon Carpenter This gets two stars because there are about two good essays in the whole book, which has a lovely premise but terrible follow-through. The feminist editors talk about the radical act of speaking honestly about appearance, which made me think that the essays would be philosophical and analytical. I assumed that many would be on the pressures of impossible and often racist beauty standards. But for every well-written, thoughtful essay on all the factors that affect appearance and all the ways in which our appearance affects others, there would be another one that made me want to throw the book away. Literally several of the stories could be renamed, "Why I'm Glad I'm So Pretty!" One actually declares that she is beautiful - for a feminist (with analysis only that competing appearance-wise only sucks when you lose) and another story about "suddenly becoming pretty" after a nose job (with analysis that the downside is it being harder to lose your looks when you're older, despite that she says she will offer her daughter one). Did the editors even read these essays before throwing them in?

Review # 2 was written on 2012-02-27 00:00:00 Doug Martin Meh. I need to remember that books of essays mean a lot of weak with a couple of 'huh' thought-provokers, and a couple I can relate to. I struggle with my interactions with mirrors, I hate them, but I also see sides of myself in a mirror that never seems to be captured in photos. I was curious about other women's "reflections" and how my own feelings compared. Unfortunately I felt like a lot of the book was pretty people crying about being pretty, or aging after they were pretty. I know that I personally struggle with acknowledging both the privilege and the consequences of beauty, and I can't relate to the problems that pretty girls have. I can conceptually understand the issues, but I can never muster up much sympathy for them. Based on my own hangups, some of the essays annoyed me rather than eliciting the reactions I think they were aiming for. At any rate, the book tries to offer a wide range of perspectives, though I felt like it got repetitive by the end of the book. It's an interesting idea, but I didn't find any essays to be stellar or compelling, though of course there were highlights.