In today’s society, teenaged girls’ views on beauty and style are influenced by aspects of their daily lives such as television, magazines, billboards, commercials, and standards set forth by strangers and family alike. In the memoir, Beautiful Stranger, Hope Donahue addresses the issues of the “ruthless food chain of perfection” (269) created by the media and the mindset of young girls to strive for perfection.

Being that the book is a memoir, the story is told from the perspective of the author, Hope Donahue, herself. The story is set up as a timeline of her life; the novel starts out with her 7 years old self and speaks from older perspectives as the story continues. The fact that Hope Donahue is writing from her own viewpoint gives the reader the feeling that they are being spoken to by a real person; this plays a large role in the powerful effect the story has on the reader.
As the story progresses, Hope Donahue falls deeper and deeper into her obsession with perfection as her struggles with self-acceptance and embracing her natural appearance becomes unbearable. Donahue begins to feel so inferior to the portrait of the “perfect girl” painted by those around her that she succumbs to her insecurities and gets her first plastic surgery operation on her nose at the early age of 22. She thought that changing her face to match those of the girls she saw in the media would give her confidence, but she was wrong; it only fueled her desire to achieve society’s view of total perfection and influenced her to get countless other surgeries that she grew to regret as she got older.

As tragic as this story is, it’s extremely relatable for any girl living in today’s society that feels the pressure to be what others consider beautiful rather than to embrace her own beauty. The story challenges readers to ponder the question, “Is anything ever enough, in a culture built on the idea that either I am perfect, or I am nothing?” (269)

The role models of today’s society are TV stars or models with shiny hair, perfectly clear skin, an hour glass figure with no excess fat to be seen anywhere on their bodies, voluptuous lips, and flawless smiles. The positive attention that these people get from the media makes it easy for girl viewers to aspire to look like them. This makes it easy for girls to aspire to look like these people who they see getting so much positive attention from the, however, Hope Donahue inspires female readers to be “strong enough to realize that it is all right to be fragile, to be less than perfect.” (292)

Without a doubt, this book deserves an A for the inspiring message that it portrays and the relatable way it is communicated to readers. Donahue descriptively empowers readers to find the strength embedded in them that they are strong and beautiful regardless of size, color, or build and directly challenges current misconception of many females in society that the way to become more beautiful is to change themselves.