n this beautifully-written account of her 18-year battle with Ewings sarcoma, a rare and usually fatal cancer, Grealy transcends victimization because her writing is as poetic as its message is empowering. Grealy was in fact primarily known as a poet. The cancer, which appeared when she was nine, ate away at her tissue, leaving her face disfigured; a series of operations failed to ever fix it completely.
She gives us a stunning testimony of what it is to be different in a society that takes for granted how much appearance matters. It is also an insight into our own vulnerability taken to the extreme.
