{"product_id":"ugly-a-letter-to-my-daughter-9780593701881","title":"Ugly: A Letter to My Daughter","description":"\u003cb\u003eA tender, moving, and insightful account of queer motherhood and an interrogation of life on the margins of American culture as a self-described \"ugly\" woman \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A rigorous ladyballs-out polemic that also tells the most raw, tender, against-all-odds story of parenthood that I've ever read.\" --Mary Gaitskill, author of \u003ci\u003eVeronica\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eUgly is a word with fangs that can kill a woman's self-esteem in one bite. Edicts about how women should look, behave, and think are the brutal forge through which they are made -- not born -- as Simone de Beauvoir famously argued in \u003ci\u003eThe Second Sex\u003c\/i\u003e. And to defy the pretty imperative is to experience a kind of invisibility. It can be a hard thing to admit to yourself, let alone to your child, to say the words \"I am ugly\" or \"I am seen as ugly.\" But early on in her motherhood journey, watching her young daughter begin to wrestle with beauty standards, Stephanie Fairyington felt compelled to face her own demons and to unpack her own ugly self-perception, one that she could trace to her own childhood, in order to conquer this seemingly immoveable frontier, far too taboo even among women to broach: the ways in which women's lives are unfairly contoured by the nature of their looks. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe multiple iterations of ugliness that Fairyington saw in her young self--her physical appearance, her formative gender dissonance, and obvious lesbianism--are not present in her beautiful and traditionally feminine daughter. But Fairyington's old feelings of inadequacy take on new meaning as she confronts fresh insecurities around her role as the nonbiological mother in her relationship, exacerbating wounds from a lifetime of being treated differently, from the poverty of her genetic inheritance to questions about her parentage to doubts about the legitimacy of her family. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eInterlacing cultural history and analysis with memoir, \u003ci\u003eUgly\u003c\/i\u003e is a probing investigation into cultural norms and the formation of our aesthetic sense of self. Fairyington contrasts her so-called ugliness with her daughter's attractiveness and adherence to beauty ideals, a tender and tenuous condition that her daughter was already walking a tightrope to maintain at age six. By sharing the history of her troubled self-image, Fairyington invites us to go rogue, to invent a new language and logic to overthrow all the ways that women have been cultivated to hate themselves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Stephanie Fairyington\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Pantheon Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/05\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.00lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.40h x 6.30w x 1.20d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780593701881\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/01\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/09\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eStephanie Fairyington\u003c\/b\u003e is a journalist who writes on gender, sexuality, family, and parenting. A former contributing writer for \u003ci\u003eThe Advocate\u003c\/i\u003e and former senior staff writer at Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global, her work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times, The Boston Globe, \u003c\/i\u003eonline for \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic, \u003c\/i\u003eand elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn with her spouse and daughter.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"booksdeli.com","offers":[{"title":"Stephanie Fairyington \/ Hardcover \/ English","offer_id":48232079687837,"sku":"9780593701881","price":33.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0619\/5648\/9373\/files\/img_9e9c0039-3861-4087-a0ae-eb1e7c502144.jpg?v=1778578259","url":"https:\/\/booksdeli.com\/products\/ugly-a-letter-to-my-daughter-9780593701881","provider":"booksdeli.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}