#ough the way her sister is like ''and your eyes are gorgeous''

[daisywords]

rereading Fairest bc I have my own copy now (yay $2.50 at a used bookstore!) and so far it's as lovely as I remember

but anyway I do like how Aza's "ugliness" is characterized by people actually treating her badly because of it. People talk about the stereotype of YA protagonists being like "oh poor me I'm so ugly" in an attempt to make them relatable but the narrative actually treats them like they are gorgeous and every character that isn't a villain finds them attractive.

Vs. here it's like. yeah her self perception is all tied up in cultural ideas of beauty and she's definitely not objective either, and a lot of what she thinks is inherent to her ugliness is all wrapped up her related social anxiety, etc.

but! It's very refreshing to see a book that deals so much with beauty standards actually commit to it! It's not like she's just vain and obsessed with looks! You can tell she wants to be beautiful because she wants to be treated like a person! The way it is just that blatant! Most people are rude to her or ignore her! And she makes it worse in her head and compounds the problem by letting her own insecurity draw attention to herself, but at the end of the day, she's right! People would treat her better if she looked different!

The details that we get about her appearance are not even "ugly" traits, either! Like we get the pale skin, black hair, red lips combo pulled directly from the traditional Snow White fairy tale, where those traits are supposed to be beautiful and desirable! But in this culture, apparently those traits are a part of her ugliness, which just perfectly highlights how the beauty standards are inherently arbitrary! And yet! They affect her life in real ways! It doesn't matter much how we, the reader, picture her; we believe that she is ugly because people treat her like she is!

Anyway I especially love how her insecurity regarding her size is portrayed. The combo of feeling small and meek and timid on the outside but being large and imposing on the outside. She feels like she takes up too much space. She doesn't want to wear anything at all attention grabbing. She doesn't know what to do with her limbs. Her biggest fear about demonstrating her magical singing trick is that she would have to show people how she moves her stomach (the horror!)

anyway everyone ever should read Fairest. I could write 12.5 dissertations on it. fantasy books for 12-year-old girls are the most serious fiction in the world actually

#gail carson levine #fairest #daisyreads #anyway what I'm saying is there's a reason why I kept coming back to this book as a very shy girl with a large frame #ough the way her sister is like ''and your eyes are gorgeous'' #the kind of conditional compliments. and they way people including her family that loves her acknowledge the pragmatic aspects #like yeah let's have you avoid the customer facing tasks. you could get famous with your singing if you were better looking #anyway. like being told irl when trying on clothes ''well what matters is if you feel confident'' #thanks! that's what you say to ugly people! #(for the record I do not think I'm particularly ugly. I am pretty average imo) #but I do think that I would be perceived differently in a lot of ways if I were prettier! (and smaller! oof) #and it's nice to have that acknowledged as a real thing in fiction #instead of assuring us that the protag isn't perfect looking but giving her all the pretty privileges anyway #wow I had more to say abt this than i thought lol