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Skin Deep
by Sandra Diersch and Gerri London
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company, Ltd.
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by: Irene S. Roth

Skin Deep is a sincere examination of a teenager’s struggle to come to terms with her mother’s mortality while struggling with her own ideas of beauty. It is a wonderfully transforming book about an adolescent girl, Cori, whose life gets turned upside down because of her mother’s sudden diagnosis of breast cancer.

Before Cori became aware of her mother’s diagnosis, she had the same plans and ambitions as any other adolescent going into the summer holidays. Cori was looking forward to endless free days to do as she pleased, with no classes, homework or other responsibilities. She just wanted to spend more time with Romi, her best friend. However, none of this was going to transpire.

Cori’s summer was anything but tranquil. She had to help her mother to cope with the surgery, and to remain strong during all of the difficult times. She had to help around the house after her mother’s surgery and treatments. Nothing was predictable. But the experience couldn’t come at a worse time for Cori.

This novel is heartbreaking, yet inspirational at the same time. It shows how we could all survive difficult experiences and grow as a result. And sometimes, a negative experience such as this can actually help adolescent girls to learn more about breast cancer and that appearances are not the only mark of beauty.

I would recommend this book to any adolescent girl who is already struggling with her own difficulties of beauty and self-acceptance. It is definitely an eye-opening book.

Irene S. Roth is a freelance writer for kids and teens. She has more than 200 published e-zine articles and 300 book reviews in different genres from adolescent and kids books to academic books. She is a reviewer for Blogcritics, Stories for Children Magazine, Booksneeze, Tyndale Publishers, Voice in the Dark, and Humane Medicine Internationa. For more information about adolescent health, self-esteem and self-confidence, please visit her website at: http://adolescentgirlsblog.wordpress.com.

You’d Be So Pretty If …

Chadwick’s book is about a very important topic: how we can help our daughters accept their bodies, even if we don’t have a perfect body ourselves. What a wonderful and empowering message to give adolescent girls and their mothers.

When I started reading the book, I couldn’t put it down until I read it from cover to cover. I found Chadwick’s approach of the subject very honest and forthright. I wish every adolescent girl and mother could read this book. It would really help to strengthen their relations with each other.

The dominant themes and ideas in the media reinforce the notions of beauty and health as super thinness. In fact, if you’re not thin, you’re not healthy. But this attitude is far from right. In fact, it has created a neurosis among women in our society that has been passed on from generation to generation. Somehow, women always feel that they aren’t thin enough or beautiful enough. They look for any kind of outside approval to validate themselves. And this is precisely where we all go wrong.

Beauty is based on our internal barometers of ourselves much more than an external assessment by others. Beauty is based on self-love and self-acceptance, and it should have very little to do with what society says about us or how we should ‘ideally’ look.

We are deeply influenced by our mothers. It would be great if mothers would simply show their daughters unconditional love and acceptance, regardless of how thin they are. It would also be wonderful if mothers would show girls how shallow and fickle the media is and that they should not allow their self-esteem and self-love to be victimized by the media.

We all need to help our daughters love themselves more. Perhaps by taking a few small steps towards showing them the importance of self-love and self-acceptance, mothers can take that first small step towards stopping the cycle of self-hated that has been ravaging our adolescent girls for a long time.

Check out more about Irene and adolescent girls at http://adolescentgirlsblog.wordpress.com/