Outside Beauty

Cynthia Kadohata (author)

Simon & Schuster, UK: 2008; 265pp

ISBN: 9781847382665

Genres: realistic fiction

Issues: family, relationships, values, identity

Shelby is the ‘plain one' of four sisters, each of different fathers. Their mother is an incredibly beautiful woman who survives by her looks and the generosity of what her daughters call her ‘major and minor' boyfriends.

Their lives having revolved entirely around their mother's beauty and the crises and dramas that result from her tumultuous relationships, the girls see themselves as a unit. Their fathers are comparatively irrelevant - they are their mother's daughters and devoted to her and each other.

So when she is in a horrendous car accident involving a drunk driver, the girls are devastated to find they are to be separated to live with their respective fathers until their mother has recovered. This has the strongest impact on the youngest, Maddie, whose father is disliked and feared by all the girls. He isn't violent - just terribly stern, strict and controlling. Maddie and Shelby are especially close and when it becomes evident that her youngest sister has withdrawn into herself in fear, Shelby contacts her other sisters - something must be done.

But what can be done when all the girls are under age and nobody recognises their need to be together? This is a novel that explores unconventional relationships and lifestyles. By having one girl who sees herself as plain, Kadohata questions the value society places on physical beauty. By damaging the mother's perfection, the author challenges both her characters and her readers to think ‘outside beauty', to look beyond the superficial for the essence; to accept life as full of change and growth - and the lines that experience brings.

Very topical in a time when our society is obsessed with reality television shows about fame, fortune and physical beauty, this novel should provoke discussion, especially amongst teenage girls.