It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body

by Kate Gies

A raw, beautiful memoir of a girl born missing an ear, a medical system insistent on saving her from herself, and our culture’s desire to “fix” bodies.

When Kate Gies was four years old, a plastic surgeon pressed a synthetic ear to the right side of her head and pulled out a mirror. He told her he could make her “whole”—could make her “right”—and she believed him. From the age of four to thirteen, she underwent fourteen surgeries, including skin and bone grafts, to craft the appearance of an outer ear. Many of the surgeries failed, leaving permanent damage to her body.

In short, lyrical vignettes, Kate writes about how her “disfigured” body was scrutinized, pathologized, and even weaponized. She describes the physical and psychic trauma of medical intervention and its effects on her sense of self, first as a child needing to be fixed and, later, as a teenager and adult navigating the complex expectations and dangers of being a woman.

It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished is the story of a girl desperately trying to have a body that makes her acceptable and of a woman learning to own a body she has never felt was hers to define. In an age of speaking out about the abuse of marginalized bodies, this memoir takes a hard look at the role of the medical system in body oppression and trauma.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Disability, Biography, Canada, Health, Feminism

332 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 4, 2025

About the author

Kate Gies is a writer and educator living in Toronto. She teaches creative nonfiction and expressive arts at George Brown College. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have been published in The Malahat Review, The Humber Literary Review, Hobart, Minola Review, the Conium Review, and the Best Canadian Essays 2024 Anthology.

Her memoir, It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished, about her childhood medical experiences related to a missing ear is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster Canada in 2025

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I've read a lot of memoirs about life with a disability but this is far and away one of the BEST!! Utterly raw, visceral and moving, Kate Gies shares what it was like being born without an ear and having to go through multiple surgeries as a child because the medical system considered her less than whole, disfigured and in need of 'betterment.' She relates the psychological trauma this had on her growing up and how it continues to affect her image of herself and her body. There were so many lines in this book I highlighted. I am in awe of the way she wrote so poetically about such a painful topic!! 10/10 recommend. This will definitely be one of my favorite books of 2025! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my humble opinions.

Favorite quote (of many):
"My biggest problem growing up was never the missing ear. It was the fixing."

CW: some graphic descriptions of medical procedures, early term miscarriage

[Katrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

At best, I thought I would love this book but I ended up loving it way more than I imagined.

At first, I was caught off guard by the abrupt nature of each section but quickly found myself completely softening into the writing style. This reads as a collection of experiences, memories and conversations, each one with its own purpose to make a specific impact while telling the story.

There is no questioning what message the author is trying to convey. I love love LOVE how the author ‘makes a statement’ and then, rather than leading the reader to HER conclusion, she leaves it open-ended enough to allow the reader to think. And not just THINK, but I was left with a strong desire to want to talk to people about it. That is an extra point of brilliance, when an author has an ability to write in a way that invokes deep discussion far beyond the book.

I found it to be a wildly thought provoking book that is far more expansive than I thought possible. I admit, I had assumptions prior to reading of the direction we would be taken as readers but I ended up being taken much deeper with a further reach to topics I had never even considered. This book has the ability to not only shift our view of individuals but also society, as a whole.

In summary - brilliant, thought provoking, easy to read, hard to put down. A must read for everyone.

Overall rating - 4.9

***Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for the opportunity to read an Advanced Readers Copy from a Goodreads Giveaway***

[Coralie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has made me think deeply about what and how much power our society attributes to physical looks. I caught myself multiple times wanting to hurl the book across the room because of Gies' parents and how they could be repeatedly putting her through the trauma of surgery. Do I understand their initial choice? Sure. Does that remove the fact that I am disappointed in our current society and how much we attribute to the way we physically present ourselves to our world? No. Gies truly made me think about the power of physical looks and how importance I unconsciously attribute to this aspect of life. Gies knows how to be concise and to the point to get to her message - and throughout that, she made me extremely reflective.

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster and Kate Gies for a digital review copy and a physical ARC.

[Vaughn Lach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Simon & Schuster and Edelweiss+ for access to a digital ARC.

I’m not certain I have the right words to describe this book. It’s as beautiful as it is devastating, stunning in all forms of the word, impossible to turn away from. At every page all o wanted to do was to take young Kate in my arms and tell her she was born finished, that there’s nothing that needs to be fixed. Though most of us don’t understand what it’s like to be born without an ear, it’s impossible to read this book without having your empathy drawn out, without recalling the otherness we’ve each felt in our own ways.

Thank you for sharing your story, Kate.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

”Variant bodies are medicalized bodies are objectified bodies are abject bodies are bodies split off from the people who house them. I am split. We are split. What would it take to let our bodies be?”

To be quite frank I had no idea what to expect when I picked up this memoir. The title caught me, and I have been actively trying to immerse myself in stories that challenge ableism, and most importantly narratives that do that while written by disabled people, but other than that I went into to it wildly unprepared.

This might be the best memoir I have ever read… I even annotated that It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished will be the benchmark that I read all other memoirs. To eschew the message for a moment, I just want to lay-out its form. While reading I really tried to probe myself… every genre of book is different and I (personally) believe each genre must be consumed differently as a result, but how should one consume a memoir? For they are recountings of true existence, they won’t always make sense, there isn’t really a ‘rising action’ in someone’s life, but there must always be a message in works of art.

Memoirs for me simply demand to be witnessed, okay, easy. But in reading this I was introduced to how much further the art of memoirs, and shaping what someone is witnessing can go… seemingly random vignettes would reinforce feelings of helplessness, or freedom, feeding the narrative in an active and artful way. There would be memories of leeches, of bad nonsensical dreams that become a rallying point. Every word mattered, every scene and vignette mattered… and more, they really fed the memoir. Notwithstanding Gies is a writer after my own heart; her prose is sopping, beleaguered and interesting. All you need to know is that is my favourite and ideal prose…

”But skin becomes feral when cut, puckers at the seams, refuses pretty. Says, Something happened here. Something happened.”

And then most importantly, is the dialogue on variant bodies and how ableism has wormed its way so deeply into our society and medical system… What profound damage misguided fixing leaves behind. As Gies says, there is no such thing as an unfinished person, and more to the point the promise of perfection is a lie as well… though there is no ‘normal’, there is no end to the surgeries and procedures and wounds (social or physical) we inflict upon ourselves or others in pursuit of it.

This was wonderful 5 stars ⭐️

xx and as always grammatical errors surely abound

[Holly Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

“My biggest problem growing up was never the missing ear. It was the fixing.” I feel like this quote sums up the books message well about beauty and society.

This memoir made you feel for Kate as you read though the short vignettes describing of her surgeries and the subsequent healing. Well I will never know what it’s like to grow up missing an ear, I think there are relatable messages about what society considers an acceptable body. All in all it was a well written interesting read that made my heart ache alittle.

Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for the Advanced Readers Copy.

[Joanna van der Berg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This one got me.

[Enid Wray · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you read this title - and certainly by the time you finish reading - you truly and profoundly “get it.”

Written with brevity this packs a powerful punch. Perhaps more importantly, this title demands empathy of the reader and has the power to entirely change someone’s world view.

That is what the best literature can do and this does it in spades.

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital copy.

Highly recommended.

[Lisa Crout]

This book isn't what I expected, but is so well done and important. I admire Kate Gies's ability to tell her story so eloquently. as a health care worker, and specifically one that worked in a procedure area in a Children's hospital, this really hit hard for me. This could've been any one of several of the patients that I cared for. A good reminder that at the end of the day, we all want some kind of control over our own bodies and our own lives, which makes Kate's story so relatable.
Well done!! 4.5 stars

[R. Sorokopud · Rating 5 out of 5]

How grippingly this autobiography develops…a read that is hard to put down. I find it amazing how naturally Kate Gies’s nascent self-awareness was so gradually shaped, crushed, then persistently, courageously rebuilt from her childhood trauma…into Kate Gies becoming such a wholesome, mature
and beautiful level-headed woman. She is an inspiration to everyone as well as to people who might
be experiencing some such trauma. Her vignettes are quite elegantly expressed. A riveting read.

[Victoria Nguyen]

This memoir is breathtaking. It is compiled by short passages and chapters but every single page feels intentional and is impactful. At times it is hard to read because of the reflections and emotions that Gies shares but it is such an important story. I don’t read nonfiction often but this absolutely captivated me and I’m glad I decided to pick it up.

[Megan Reads-a-lot · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who spent heir teenage years in and out of hospitals and doctor’s offices, I very much empathized with this memoir. Kate’s book very much spoke to my heart.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was deeply moving for me. I originally came across Gies's memoir on a list of books about disability, and it immediately proved to be very different from what I was expecting. There are so many layers and complexities here: self-image, womanhood, bullying and isolation, autonomy, trauma and healing. It's painful -- brutal at times -- emotional, real, honest, vulnerable and incredibly thought-provoking. I have no doubt Kate Gies is someone who will inspire others to use writing as a means of healing.

[Escaping in Pages · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating - 5/5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Date Read - January 26, 2025
Publication Date - February 4, 2025

*I received an ARC of this book for free in exchange for an honest review* - Thank you @katygies and @simonschusterca!

My first 5 star of the year! It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished is a memoir about Kate Gies’ life and experiences. You can really feel the emotion pouring out from the words on each page and it feels like Kate is speaking right to you. She is an amazing storyteller with powerful writing and very intentional phrasing. This is an emotional book, which I love, but please check trigger warnings if you need to. Through Kate’s experiences, the reader gets a glimpse into the failures of the medical system and how social constructions of “normal” harm so many of us. I enjoyed the pictures throughout the book and I liked how the book was split into parts but it was a little hard to follow the timeline sometimes. Our stories are not the same but I relate to so much and appreciate Kate putting words to things I have felt. I'll read pretty much anything Kate writes now.

If you like memoirs or emotional books, It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished is the book for you!

Get excited to read It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished, available February 4! 🎉

*Please check trigger warnings*

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard Kate on the CBC podcast Bookends and immediately bought it and read it in two days. Kate is such a good writer and her "outrage" voice is well developed making me think and feel about my own medical trauma and one eared status. I too have written a book and resonate with the idea of using act of writing to reclaim my body and self as Kate did. I am much older and the attitudes were even worse when I was growing up. Luckily I have had a lot of healing. There are many good one liners: funny and sad and angering.
I recommend this book strongly as it will make anyone think about loving their body more.
signing off,
A fellow One eared Warrior

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has to be one of the most gut wrenching memoirs I've read. Even though it was almost impossible to put down, the amount of emotion triggered by Gies writing made me need to put it down at multiple points to gather my thoughts, work through what I had just read, and acknowledge what it had triggered. There are only 5 stars, but 10/10 would (and am) recommending this book to everyone. The book club I moderate had similar feelings, and definitely needed something a bit lighter to follow.

[Margi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving. Touching. I will be reading this to my group.

[Terri (BooklyMatters) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I was just a body trying to survive.”

Easily one of my favorite memoirs, ever, this searing, heart-shredding look at innocence lost —at power, and culture, and the hideous and misguided attempts to mold little girls into societal ideals, no matter the cost — broke my heart and made me ache, for a better world, a better life for all of us, and in particular, those of us born “different” (which after all, is really one and the same thing).

Born without a right ear, the author’s journey , beginning at the tender age of three, is one she must take, hand-in-hand with a medical profession focused on everything but their pristine and already perfect patient, to carve her a new one — out of plastic, then out of her own skin and cartilage, until they can get it right — that is, close enough to pass for something “real”, something “beautiful”, some ideal imagined wholly in their own heads.

And so begins the systematic destruction of a child’s psyche — never good enough, never whole, never even “real”, as she suffers through cut after cut, (ribs, stomach, groin, you name it) — medical trauma unleashed on a child’s body through fourteen separate surgeries over a period of ten years.

It hurts.

If it hurts this much to read, how must it feel to live it?

The story is told in a series of haunting vignettes, each encapsulated beautifully in the author’s poetic and gorgeous prose. Throughout her story, the author’s voice is chilling, enthralling, so raw and authentic that for this reader, the shared experience is profoundly unsettling. For each vignette, a seesaw is set in motion with the reader. First: we perceive that this happened. But this must not happen (rationally). And then, we feel the counterbalance of an emotive flood of raw and searing compassion. Over and over again.

“I write this body into wholeness.”

As the author finds her way back it becomes abundantly clear to her.

“My biggest problem growing up was never the missing ear. It was the fixing.”

A great big thank you to the author, and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

[Alison Gadsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this gorgeous book half a dozen times. Finishing it was as emotional as reading the passages that made me close the book. I didn’t stop because of discomfort, but because I needed to sit with my thoughts, holding Kate’s words to my chest and feeling some things.

“It’s so hard as a parent — you’re making decisions that can affect your child’s whole life. You want to make the right decisions, but it isn’t always clear what those are.” Susan Gies, Kate’s mom, p. 271.
I am Susan.

While some might see IT MUST BE BEAUTIFUL TO BE FINISHED as an essential read for anyone who shares Kate’s experiences getting “fixed” (and it is!), I want everyone else to read it. The idea that different or “disfigured” bodies need fixing comes from a societal push to create a (medically aligned) physical model of normal to which everyone should aspire. My husband and I were referred to a dermatologist and to “get the ball rolling on the laser treatments” we saw a plastic surgeon before we saw an ophthalmologist or neurologist – and so the actual life-threatening, and vision-threatening diagnoses of his rare condition came around the same time he got his first “spots”.
The narrative structure demands that we pay attention to ALL the moments, big or small, that had an impact on Kate’s life, and the message is communicated in gorgeous and deeply emotional prose. Why must differences be “fixed” or “normalized?” “When is the renovation of one’s body over? What is the model of perfection?” “What is the line between healing and harming a body?”
Kate has generously shared memories of a childhood , the grief at losing The Kate I Was Supposed To Be, the acceptance of self, the love of self, despite society’s insistence that she’d be happier if she were “fixed,” and I truly believe this and other memoirs from adults with similar experiences, should be essential reading for all the self-described normal-appearing folks, and it should probably be an essential read to anyone going into paediatric plastic surgery.

This is a book I will hold close to my heart forever.

[Mika Ilic · Rating 5 out of 5]

The minute you turn 18, you should be given It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished as mandatory reading. This is a book that delves into our ideas of how we view our own bodies as well as how others view our body. It’s a story told in fragments, jumping from different points in time and asking the reader to pick up the pieces and build a puzzle of a life so that we may see the image reflected back on ourselves. It is, at its core, a novel that removes the layers of expectation, ridicule, shame, societal standards, and pain, until we are left with the human condition of wanting to be the best version of ourselves. And when Kate Gies gets you there at the end, you’ll realize how you feel exposed yet joyfully whole. I think books that expand your perspective and ask you to widen the scope of your empathy and sympathy are at the top of my list, and what Gies has written is a memoir that will sit with me for the rest of my life. You will relate to pieces of her story while the rest will dig its way into your heart and squeeze in the most brutally honest way imaginable. I must have teared up or paused to breathe several times while reading, and I was a tsunami of emotion and waterworks the last few chapters. If you want a book that truly takes you upon a journey of healing, pick up It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished. You can then talk to me and we can discuss everything that moved us. This will likely be the best book I read all year and has likely cemented itself as a top 5 book I’ve ever read. Plus, she’s a homegrown Canadian author!

[Kathy Mitson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book. Read it quite quickly, as it was easy to get into the story from almost the first page.
This is the memoir of Kate Gies who was born in Kingston, Ontario with one ear. Over the next 14 years she tells us from her earliest memories about going to hospitals, interacting with medical staff, predominantly with doctors, and the experiences inside this institutions of health and healing. It is not a happy tale, but her honesty is raw and though difficult to read at times, she shares her deepest and most personal thoughts and feelings.
It speaks to the manner in which historically doctors (usually male) would speak to patients, and to their parents, especially their mothers, in a manner that is unkind at best and insulting and demeaning at worse.
It tries to discuss what makes us "normal or average."

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Gies’s memoir “It Must be Beautiful to be Finished” contains vignettes sharing how she endured 14 surgeries as a child to teenager. All these procedures left not only physical but psychological scars on the writer. She addresses the issues of the role of the medical system and how their involvement may not necessarily be in the best interest of the patient.

Kate’s personal story is worth reading!

Thank you GoodReads for the book.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

My memoir group unanimously loved this one. It’s written in short snippets of memory and jumps forward and backward a bit, but it isn’t hard to follow. The style of writing actually compliments Geis’s story well. She’s thoughtful and honest, allowing readers to form their own opinions about what happened to her and how her life might have been different. My heart broke for this kid. Anyone who has endured medical trauma will relate to her story.

[Stephanie H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking experience to read. I was enthralled from start to finish.

As someone who has gone through some surgeries on one of my ears resulting in a prosthetic inner ear, this put into words some things I’ve always been aware of but never brought to the surface. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot about the impact of medical trauma on the body and the spirit. It’s a well written book, in short vignettes, and I finished it in a day. It got better as the story progressed. It’s the best kind of memoir, where the author processes their trauma through the writing and brings the reader along for the learnings. Highly recommended.

[Suzie Babij · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very touching story! A truly sad reminder of how focused we are, as a society, on appearance and how our own can even have a traumatic effect on who we feel we are as a person.

Very well written. Raw and eye opening.

[Shane C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a breathtaking and heartbreaking journey toward wholeness even in incompleteness. A brilliant, courageous and insightful book that is a must read for this year or indeed any year.

[Megan Suddergaard · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this book 10 stars, I would. I finished it in one day as I could not put it down.

[Abigail Russo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gies weaves together past and present beautifully to tell the story of how others attempted to define and “fix” her body. A worthwhile read.

[Kirsten Fogg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Gies crafts her pain and trauma into healing and art and the reader is transformed along with her. A raw empowering story in vignettes. Seriously beautiful prose.