Who can survive the siren call of beauty?
Eunis, a grotesque-looking young woman struggles with the myth of beauty in an attempt to find perfection (and sanity) in herself.
When four-year old Eunis Kindsvatter leaves her Minnesota farmhouse for the very first time, it’s because her mother drags her to a doctor . . .with the hope he’ll absolve her for Eunis’ face. It’s albino with a grotesque birthmark. “An unnaturally ugly thing,” according to Momma. Though the doctor finds nothing physically wrong, Eunis is kept isolated from the world, Momma filling her with tales of fearful gods, demons and prophecy.
Eunis begins to experience unpredictable hypersensitivity to people and places. She instinctively gravitates to water and to Freyja, the Norse goddess of beauty, Momma’s ideal. Determined to be of value, Eunis embarks on a journey to quantify beauty, to protect future generations from the pain she’s experienced, and someday “make everybody beautiful” —through science.
But Eunis’ obsessive research into beauty draws her into a world of unreliable voices, unforeseen pleasures, dangers and death. In Beautiful to the Bone, Eunis must fight for her sanity and reconcile the gap between the science of beauty and the incalculable qualities that draw us to it.
