Customer Reviews

Beautiful Stranger

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I finished the book, but wasn't "wowed" by it. It felt like I still wasn't getting the "real" Hope, but a glossy, superficial version. She openly describes her obsessions, compulsions, and the dynamics behind them, but it just doesn't connect on a visceral, emotional level. It feels stilted and plastic. It's an interesting memoir, but not memorable.

This book chronicles an obsession with physical perfection--a true story about Donahue's own life. Her need to keep "improving" upon her physical self masked her own mental illness (OCD) and emotional issues left from a difficult childhood and often bizarre, unhealthy familial relationships. Donahue writes with brutal honesty about her own feelings and desires; while it is difficult to identify with her, it is easy to understand her, mainly due to the matter-of-fact way she explains and describes things. She resists the urge to tie up all loose ends neatly at the end of book, to wipe the slate totally clean and declare everything "fine". While it is clear that she has more control over her drive towards perfection and that she has done a lot of personal work in therapy and immensely improved her life, she admits to the all-too-frequent internal struggle over the old impulses to "fix" things.
Overall, the book is very interesting--it's often hard to believe that all these things happened to one person in 27 years, and harder still to believe that she managed to get her life back on track in an even shorter period of time. The confessional writing style creates intimacy and discomfort--both of which are necessary to understanding the author and her illness. While the book could have been even more interesting with before and after photos, it remains a compelling memoir.

This book is a compelling story of a young woman who instead of swimming through life merely drifts along with the current.

Always wanting to please others, always wanting to be accepted, the girl who is beautiful on the outside is empty inside. Her continual quest for acceptance moves her to continually change her face hoping that the "new" nose, cheeks and lips will solve her problems.

Dealing with, and having a crush, on her non-board certified plastic surgeons add fuel to the fire as they slice and dice and literally bankrupt Hope (such an ironic name). Faced with a 6000 dollar fee, Hope turns to "modelling" and descends into the porn business sub-culture.

As she states in the final chapter of her book, there is no Hollywood ending to her story. She marries, has children and continues her facial makeovers.

This book was a strange, intimate journey with Hope. Story line aside, the book was extremely well written. Not a long read, but a memorable one none-the-less. Recommended!

I picked this up quickly at B&N to read while having coffee becoz of its provocative title and cover. It hooked me immediately with its intimacy and easy-read flow. I rarely comment on a book but felt it was important to highly recommend this one. Kudos to the author. I'll remember this one for awhile.

Wow - I started reading this and couldn't put it down. There is something very compelling about Hope's story, and I appreciated her "warts and all" honesty. I did think that the "before" part was a little too long, and would have liked to hear more about the "after" part. I hope that the fact that she realizes that she has OCD doesn't excuse others who may be following in her footsteps from relating to this story (i.e. - well, I don't have OCD, so my constant visits to the cosmetic surgeon are OK). Dr. S epitomizes all that is wrong with the "beauty industry". I sure hope he gets his comeuppance (though he'll probably just become more popular when people figure out who he is). Kudos to you, Hope. Thanks for telling your story with gut-wrenching honesty. I hope that the process has been helpful in your recovery.

It was frightening to read how easily this girl followed the cut and paste view of beauty. But I found myself thinking of my own bending to pressure in smaller, less drastic ways. A very well written book.

This book is about a woman who has a series of plastic sur-
geries, one after the other. Whenever anything is wrong
with her life she attempts to fix it with an operation. She
finds her first doctor through an advertisement in the back
of a free weekly magazine. For a self-described smart girl,
she does some very stupid things. Her obsession with herself
make her unlikable and very lonely.

The author appears to have a fixation on plastic surgeries as
a way to solve all her problems. She examines her family of
origin's connection to her body dysmorphic disorder, ties it
to obsessive compulsive disorder and depression, but these
explanations seem too glib. Her surface explanations appear
to mirror her surface re-do's through surgery.

Her therapy is assigned less than 10 pages of the book and
then all is happily ever after once she is 'cured' and leaves
the world of self-loathing and sado-masochism, living happily
ever after. Could this be phony balogna? Or......could it be
a romanticized account by someone not yet in true recovery? I
think the latter is more likely.

The book is entertaining enough and a very easy read, but I immediately wondered why there were no pictures. It's very odd, since the book is all about the search for physical perfection. The book references photos, but doesn't include any. The author claims to have been extremely beautiful, yet found flaws in herself and turned to plastic surgery.

The bookjacket reveals Hope Donahue the author. A cute woman with a cheeky grin and the appearance of not a care in the world. So when you read her story you are struck by how deceiving appearances are.

"Beautiful Stranger" is the true story of how Hope Donahue was totally immersed and obsessed with her appearance. She studied woman's magazines for the latest potions promising perfection. Spent hours ruminating over her "flaws". And countless time and money in the plastic surgeons office having one procedure after another.

She has her nose worked on, eyelift, cheek implants, breast surgery and more. In addition she doesn't give much thought to eating her roommates food and snooping through their drawers. Hope eventually is diagnosed with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and takes medication. She marries and has children.

Sadly though she admits near the end of the book that she still has the problem as she has had her eyebrows tatooed twice, a birthmark put on and removed, botox, collegen etc.

I felt great pity for the author. I want to say, "Hope, beauty is not all there is to life. And even if you are beautiful so what? It doesn't make you happier inside as witnessed by the super models like Gia who kill themselves or become addicted to drugs to ease depression. Regardless my comments would most likely not help Hope who seems driven now and then by urges she can't control.

I greatly admire Hope's gut wrenching honesty. Photographs would have give the book the extra star.

This book is about much more than plastic surgery - the author did not have these surgeries just to improve her physical image. She suffers from an anxiety-related disorder that led her to obsess about her appearance and compulsively attempt to change it, just the way some people obsess about germs and compulsively wash their hands. Some of Hope's desire to change her appearance is more self-mutilation than self-improvement: "I...once believed there was nothing about my physical self that was worth preserving." The author has waged a valiant struggle to overcome her OCD behavior, through introspection and medication. The book's epilogue is particularly honest and touching, as she recounts some of her more recent battles with OCD thoughts and behavior. The book is insightful, well-written and gripping; I read it in one sitting. You may recognize yourself in Hope. I imagine that many people purchase this book thinking that it will be a sensational tell-all by a vapid bimbo who'd stop at nothing to be perfect, but that isn't what the book is about at all. It's about a woman whose life derailed and her quest to understand why and to rectify the situation. It's about overcoming one's upbringing and recreating a value system from the ground up. It's about introspection and personal growth, recognizing yourself for who you really are and not who others expect you to be. It's about coming to terms with mental illness and not being crippled by its stigma, but rather addressing it in order to move forward with a productive life.