I'll openly admit that I love to read, and not just thick adult novels off of Opera's must-read list. I love the simplicity and fun plots of children and young adults books too. One of my absolute favorite books of all time is Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine. And I mean the story from the actual book, not that miserable nonsense they call a movie. It really only shares the title, I refuse to watch that monstrosity. But back to the point, Gail Carson Levine is a fabulous author. She weaves fantasy tales the way spiders do webs. Ella Enchanted is the best fractured fairy tale I've ever read- it's a version of Cinderella, for anyone who's never heard of the book. Anyway, as I was browsing through the books at Target last week, it was all I could do to keep from shrieking when I saw a new book by Gail called Fairest. This time it's a version of Snow White.
Like all her stories, it's fabulous. I was sucked in immediately and read it in one sitting. The point of the story is beauty- what true beauty really is. The protaganist and main character is Aza- who is, by the standards of her fellow people, ugly. Though she is blessed with an amazing voice. The underlying points of the story follows how Aza struggles with her self esteem, and how the pursuit of beauty affects people. It's a really good story that everyone can learn from, especially in today's society, where physical beauty is revered over so many things, and people will go to great lengths to become beautiful (or stay beautiful). It brings to mind an episode of the Twilight Zone I had seen. It opens up in a hospital room, where a bunch of doctors are surrounding a woman in a hospital bed. She has bandages all over her face. Through the dialog, we understand that the woman was severely ugly and deformed, and this surgery was performed in hopes of "fixing" her face, and making her beautiful. However, there were no guarentees, and the doctors warn her before they take the bandages off that the surgery may not have worked. Now, the whole time, we've never actually seen the doctors faces. Once they remove the bandages, there are shrieks of horror, and sobbing, and everyone proclaims in sadness that the procedure didn't work, she's still so ugly. Then we're shown the woman, and she is (to us) a beautiful woman! Then we finally see the doctors, and they have wide, contorted faces, with large blunt noses, long chins, and enormous foreheads. The episode ends with a handsome man coming to escort the woman away to a small sanctuary where the "ugly" people stay, amongst themselves, so they're not a burden to the rest of society. The main point was obviously that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
And that's also the case in Fairest. At the end, Aza does marry her prince, who fell in love with her from the very beginning, because of her kind, sweet soul, and her many other attributes that make people truly lovely. I'm glad I read it. Like probably everyone, I often struggle with my self esteem, I'm probably my own worst critic. Just the other day I thought to myself, "I have a face for radio, and a voice for silent movies." I had to shake myself out of those negative thoughts, but it is hard. Every day we're constantly bombarded with images of "perfect" people, and I don't live up to that. No one does, because the people in movies have tons of makeup on, their hair is constantly styled by professionals, their clothing perfectly picked out to best flatter their body. In magazines, it's the same deal, except they can also be airbrushed to perfection (which they often are). I know this, yet I have to remind myself again, and again, and again. So books like Fairest are such a comfort to me, and a good reminder as well. I've been blessed so much, and while I may not be perfect in the world's eyes, I am me, made by God, who never makes mistakes, and who has made me perfect in him. Thank you, God!
