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The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty
"A sure comic touch . . . smart and sweet . . . a tribute to the pleasures of friendship." —The New Yorker
In the heart of New York City, a group of artistic friends struggles with society's standards of beauty. At the center are Barb and Lily, two women at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, but with the same problem: each fears she will never find a love that can overcome her looks. Barb, a stunningly beautiful costume designer, makes herself ugly in hopes of finding true love. Meanwhile, her friend Lily, a brilliantly talented but plain-looking musician, goes to fantastic lengths to attract the man who has rejected her—with results that are as touching as they are transformative.
To complicate matters, Barb and Lily discover that they may have a murderer in their midst, that Barb’s calm disposition is more dangerously provocative than her beauty ever was, and that Lily's musical talents are more powerful than anyone could have imagined. Part literary whodunit, part surrealist farce, The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty is a smart, modern-day fairy tale. With biting wit and offbeat charm, Amanda Filipacchi illuminates the labyrinthine relationship between beauty, desire, and identity, asking at every turn: what does it truly mean to allow oneself to be seen?
In the heart of New York City, a group of artistic friends struggles with society's standards of beauty. At the center are Barb and Lily, two women at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, but with the same problem: each fears she will never find a love that can overcome her looks. Barb, a stunningly beautiful costume designer, makes herself ugly in hopes of finding true love. Meanwhile, her friend Lily, a brilliantly talented but plain-looking musician, goes to fantastic lengths to attract the man who has rejected her—with results that are as touching as they are transformative.
To complicate matters, Barb and Lily discover that they may have a murderer in their midst, that Barb’s calm disposition is more dangerously provocative than her beauty ever was, and that Lily's musical talents are more powerful than anyone could have imagined. Part literary whodunit, part surrealist farce, The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty is a smart, modern-day fairy tale. With biting wit and offbeat charm, Amanda Filipacchi illuminates the labyrinthine relationship between beauty, desire, and identity, asking at every turn: what does it truly mean to allow oneself to be seen?
336 pages, Paperback
First published February 9, 2015
120 people are currently reading
10822 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Filipacchi
6 books120 followersAmanda Filipacchi is the author of three previous novels, Nude Men, Vapor, and, most recently, Love Creeps. Her writing has appeared in Best American Humor and elsewhere. She lives in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 661 reviews
December 10, 2015
DNF @53%
I first read about this book via The NY Times, they gave this book a glittering review, so I just had to bump it up my TBR list. The review promised a fresh take on the complexities of beauty and friendship, with a touch of magic realism (insta-boner), so now I am here researching if I read the same book as the reviewer, because I do not see anything glittering about this novel at all.
I really wanted to like this because beauty has always been a subject of interest to me, and the concept is fresh and intriguing, but Filipacchi just does not have the writing chops to deliver. Worse than telling and not showing, her writing feels disjointed, as if she's listing off events, then she drops philosophical shit out of the blue like - "my fat may not be real, but it's attached to my soul".
Then we have the characters in this book. They're a bunch of friends in their late 20's living the Bohemian dream in Manhattan. One is an award winning novelist, then there's the plain concert pianist featured in Rolling Stone, a rich girl entrepreneur selling ironic hipster art, the hero ex-cop and our main protagonist, Barb, who is an Oscar nominated costume designer (Do you feel like an underachiever yet? ). Barb has issues with her supermodel goddess beauty and body, so she wears a fat suit. Barb would have been a great character if she were more dynamic, besides from a need to wear a disguise, she's virtually perfect. Instead of being the intriguing, complex character she's supposed to be, Barb comes off as pretentious (besides from the obvious reason of course) and annoying as fuck. The annoying part though is I think a product of poor character development.
Barb and her friends are called the Knights of Creations, and they're SUPPOSED TO BE tight knit ala Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, but even here Filipacchi fails. They don't interact like friends despite Barb narrating they have shared all their hopes, dreams and fears. Idk about everyone else but my closest friends and I have nearly 0 boundaries, we can be as obnoxious and loud around each other and not a single fuck would be given. The Knights of Creation though, they tiptoe around each other a lot, especially around Lily who is supposed to be physically hideous. They refrain from talking about beauty around her and "mirrors become loaded silence" when she is around. I don't even know what that means, but I do have a friend who has physical deformities because of Turner's Syndrome, and the worse I can do to her is treat her differently from my other friends because of her deformity.Acquaintances and strangers skirt around sensitive subjects, close friends joke about them.
There's just far too much going on in this novel, it's chick-lit, supposedly satire and a murder mystery. I don't usually give 1 star ratings but this book is just a no on all fronts. I'd even go as far to claim that this book is the worst I have read in a long time. I should have heeded the ratings after all.
April 2, 2015
I don't even know what the hell I just read. This book had such interesting themes and ideas but it took a strange turn for the supernatural, weird, and downright ridiculous. The ending felt a bit rushed too after dragging out the story as long as it did. I can handle a lot of random things but the things that happened in this book were beyond something I can take seriously. This was absurd.
April 2, 2015
Did I read a completely different book than every single person saying that this was "hilarious"? Because not once did I find anything funny..annoying, yes. Funny, no.
April 17, 2015
Such a terrific premise, and what a huge disappointment. I have taught writing to middle school students and found better prose written by 6th graders. Filipacchi's premise is intriguing and there is a fair amount of imagination here that could have been quite enchanting, but all of that is just so painfully dulled by a writing style that is absolutely boring, wearisome, and flavorless. I couldn't wait for it to be over.
December 10, 2014
"Unique" is an adjective flogged to death by dishonest copywriters, yet it accurately describes Amanda Filipacchi's fascinating and hilarious new novel. "The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty" made me laugh out loud many times, yet it's also poignant, exploring painful truths about living in a superficial society, where looks often trump good character, accomplishments, kindness, and the ability to be a true friend. Although the plot is absurdist and touched with surreal happenings (including the most outrageous and funny dinner party scene I've ever read), the characters are grounded by emotions that will resonate with anyone who's been in love. The pages flew by and I just wanted to keep reading. In fact, I think I'll read it again!
July 25, 2022
A full seven years later I'm still thinking about the dinner party scene in this book.
Seriously. As far as dinner party scenes go, it rivals (in its own VERY different way) the one in Harrow the Ninth.
Seriously. As far as dinner party scenes go, it rivals (in its own VERY different way) the one in Harrow the Ninth.
April 6, 2015
I don’t recall how this book landed on my To Read shelf but I am so glad it did. Bravo Amanda Filipacchi! I loved it.
You know the clichés ... “Beauty is only skin deep.” “Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.” “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” “Close your eyes and see the beauty.” All very true but so blah blah blah cliché, until the author works her magic.
This masterfully poignant yet whimsical, satirical, laugh out loud tale explores every cliché about beauty through the lives of Barb, Lily, Georgia, Penelope and Jack, all very creative and successful twenty-something artists residing in New York City. They get together for Nights of Creation, their own small, private artistic group, to inspire each other, share artistic companionship and create! Their lives and relationships are influenced by the perception of beauty and the entire story explores the twists and turns of their pursuit of friendship, love and happiness despite the burden and interference of beauty.
Don’t worry ... no highbrow, talk down lectures here. This is a farce, a fantasy, a fairytale and a slapstick comedy adroitly blended together with lots of deadpan humor to spice it up. Lmao! It’s funny but it’s serious at the same time. Is there a name for that?
Barb and Lily are central to the story. They’ve been very good friends for over eight years and range from opposite ends of the beauty spectrum. Barb Colby is a wildly successful costume designer and extraordinarily beautiful by society’s standards. Her beauty is her burden and she’s designed a costume she has worn for the past two years that makes her look fat and ugly. Only her four closest friends and her mother know about her disguise. She perceives that her close friend Gabriel, a former Nights of Creation member until his untimely death, killed himself because of her intense beauty. Barb fears her beauty will do harm to others. Her beauty is a deadly weapon! She’s in search of a man who can see past her physical appearance, accept her for what she is and find her true beauty buried deep inside.
“It’s physically painful to look at you, you’re so beautiful.”
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Lily Stanton is twenty-five and the youngest member of their group. She is a gifted pianist and writes magical music that beautifies people and objects. They become highly desirable! By society’s standards Lily is ugly. Her body is okay but her eyes are far too close, her face unattractive but otherwise she is pure loveliness. She writes her beautification scores to attract Strad, the man she deeply loves but who is superficial and driven by physical beauty. He falls in love with her when he is under the influence of her beautification melody, which reveals the full radiance of her inner beauty. When no music is playing Lily wears a mysterious, feathered mask Barb designed especially for her to pique his curiosity and interest.
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“Why couldn’t this kind of connection have existed if she hadn’t become beautiful? Why is it that a connection that seems to have nothing to do with looks – because it feels so much deeper than that, like a connection of minds and souls – is actually entirely dependent on looks?”
As Barb and Lily, with lots of help from the other Knights of Creation, find their way through situations and circumstances on their way to full discovery of their true inner and outer beauty, I found it so interesting and perhaps ironic that Lily wants to create a mask to expose her inner beauty while Barb already wears a mask to conceal hers.
What is beauty? How influential is it in our choices of friends, lovers, wives and husbands? What assumptions and judgements do we make about a person based on their physical appearance? Who is truly beautiful? And does it really matter anyway? This book would be a terrific book discussion group read – so many issues and ironies.
For me this was a charmingly humorous and thought provoking read that put a twinkle in my eye and a big fat smile on my face (Is a fat smile beautiful??? Ha ha ha!)
I must confess. After I learned about Barb’s fat suit all I could think of was David Byrne belting out Girlfriend Is Better in The Big Suit! Certainly added to the humor :)
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“I go to the far end of my living room. ‘Let me also give you this.’ I unhook from the wall my most darkly beautiful, mysterious mask. I bring it to him. ‘Wear it when you're with her. At least the first few times.’ He takes the mask and looks at it, perplexed. ‘Why don't you want her to see me?’
I smile. ‘On the contrary. I do.’”
THE END
Give this book a try. I think you’ll like it!
You know the clichés ... “Beauty is only skin deep.” “Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.” “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” “Close your eyes and see the beauty.” All very true but so blah blah blah cliché, until the author works her magic.
This masterfully poignant yet whimsical, satirical, laugh out loud tale explores every cliché about beauty through the lives of Barb, Lily, Georgia, Penelope and Jack, all very creative and successful twenty-something artists residing in New York City. They get together for Nights of Creation, their own small, private artistic group, to inspire each other, share artistic companionship and create! Their lives and relationships are influenced by the perception of beauty and the entire story explores the twists and turns of their pursuit of friendship, love and happiness despite the burden and interference of beauty.
Don’t worry ... no highbrow, talk down lectures here. This is a farce, a fantasy, a fairytale and a slapstick comedy adroitly blended together with lots of deadpan humor to spice it up. Lmao! It’s funny but it’s serious at the same time. Is there a name for that?
Barb and Lily are central to the story. They’ve been very good friends for over eight years and range from opposite ends of the beauty spectrum. Barb Colby is a wildly successful costume designer and extraordinarily beautiful by society’s standards. Her beauty is her burden and she’s designed a costume she has worn for the past two years that makes her look fat and ugly. Only her four closest friends and her mother know about her disguise. She perceives that her close friend Gabriel, a former Nights of Creation member until his untimely death, killed himself because of her intense beauty. Barb fears her beauty will do harm to others. Her beauty is a deadly weapon! She’s in search of a man who can see past her physical appearance, accept her for what she is and find her true beauty buried deep inside.
“It’s physically painful to look at you, you’re so beautiful.”
Lily Stanton is twenty-five and the youngest member of their group. She is a gifted pianist and writes magical music that beautifies people and objects. They become highly desirable! By society’s standards Lily is ugly. Her body is okay but her eyes are far too close, her face unattractive but otherwise she is pure loveliness. She writes her beautification scores to attract Strad, the man she deeply loves but who is superficial and driven by physical beauty. He falls in love with her when he is under the influence of her beautification melody, which reveals the full radiance of her inner beauty. When no music is playing Lily wears a mysterious, feathered mask Barb designed especially for her to pique his curiosity and interest.
“Why couldn’t this kind of connection have existed if she hadn’t become beautiful? Why is it that a connection that seems to have nothing to do with looks – because it feels so much deeper than that, like a connection of minds and souls – is actually entirely dependent on looks?”
As Barb and Lily, with lots of help from the other Knights of Creation, find their way through situations and circumstances on their way to full discovery of their true inner and outer beauty, I found it so interesting and perhaps ironic that Lily wants to create a mask to expose her inner beauty while Barb already wears a mask to conceal hers.
What is beauty? How influential is it in our choices of friends, lovers, wives and husbands? What assumptions and judgements do we make about a person based on their physical appearance? Who is truly beautiful? And does it really matter anyway? This book would be a terrific book discussion group read – so many issues and ironies.
For me this was a charmingly humorous and thought provoking read that put a twinkle in my eye and a big fat smile on my face (Is a fat smile beautiful??? Ha ha ha!)
I must confess. After I learned about Barb’s fat suit all I could think of was David Byrne belting out Girlfriend Is Better in The Big Suit! Certainly added to the humor :)
“I go to the far end of my living room. ‘Let me also give you this.’ I unhook from the wall my most darkly beautiful, mysterious mask. I bring it to him. ‘Wear it when you're with her. At least the first few times.’ He takes the mask and looks at it, perplexed. ‘Why don't you want her to see me?’
I smile. ‘On the contrary. I do.’”
THE END
Give this book a try. I think you’ll like it!
March 24, 2015
The truly unfortunate thing is that...in spite of what this book aimed to "teach" about true beauty, truly seeing someone, and truly seeing yourself, I found myself holding that point against it. I am aware likely due to my own life. I have a colostomy bag...something brought up. I've had it since I was 13...20 years now. I'm married. To...incidentally...a man with no health issues. I was bald when he met me. It didn't matter to him. So perhaps I ought to have been nodding along at the points in the book, but I wasn't. I was thinking of my limitations. I was thinking of how it truly is surprising to many that my husband would "love me in spite of"... what a dangerous place to dance. I commend the author on what it appears she tried to do, but it didn't work for me...less so for some subject matter. 2.5 stars, but accounting also for my own bias and jaded life.
September 30, 2018
This book was not at all what I was expecting. For some reason, I thought it would be a lyrical, experimental novel. Instead, what I found was a robust satire of the value we place on beauty.
Barb is a costume designer living in New York City. She is part of a group of creative people who call themselves "Knights of Creation". She struggles against society's standards of beauty--indeed, what appears to be the requirements for a woman to find love. She hides her beauty in a disguise of a fat suit and wig. Meanwhile, her friend Lily is stunningly unattractive and hopelessly in love with a man who can't see past her looks.
It's a blend of farce and mystery with a touch of magical realism thrown in to hold the rest together. I loved every moment of it. Unlike most books that I have read lately that are touted as "funny" but left me slightly depressed, this one touched me while also making me laugh. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it immensely.
Barb is a costume designer living in New York City. She is part of a group of creative people who call themselves "Knights of Creation". She struggles against society's standards of beauty--indeed, what appears to be the requirements for a woman to find love. She hides her beauty in a disguise of a fat suit and wig. Meanwhile, her friend Lily is stunningly unattractive and hopelessly in love with a man who can't see past her looks.
It's a blend of farce and mystery with a touch of magical realism thrown in to hold the rest together. I loved every moment of it. Unlike most books that I have read lately that are touted as "funny" but left me slightly depressed, this one touched me while also making me laugh. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it immensely.
March 22, 2015
Started out interesting, on a psychological level, turned into bad fantasy and got worse.
December 7, 2014
The magical hex of beauty is revealed or unveiled in this satirical maze of an amazing novel. Only Filipacchi can entertain and analyze us simultaneously while holding us delightfully spellbound. A must-read!
December 2, 2016
You'd think the title would give it away but I listened to this whole awful thing in its' entirety and I am no better for it.
It was like Girls or Sex and the City but if the people were less interesting and maybe one of them was a killer. It was the damn, 'there's a killer in the midst of these rich assholes with pointless lives' that hooked me and it shouldn't have because OF COURSE it did not go anywhere. Plus it was easy to figure out which one it might have been since it was the only one in the group who did anything even remotely considered "dishonest." The potential murder scene (a friend commits suicide and then sends cryptic messages from the grave saying one of them is a killer and has promised to kill a shitty potential boyfriend of another member of the group. At a specific time and date, they've also promised to only kill them during that window?? plus they murdered a guy in a bar for saying the same friend with the potential shit head boyfriend was ugly.) came and went earlier in the book than I expected it to. Then there was this completely separate plot after it with the ugly friend wearing a mask and also playing mind altering music she created to make herself beautiful.
It was a bunch of dickheads in New York, being "creative" and one of them can make music that influences people, so it's randomly science fiction, I guess, but only when it suits the plot. Which it ends up doing when the woman who can make this music turns into glass and then shatters into a million pieces, slicing the main character for absolutely no reason other than drama.
Every time I think about this book I go crazy. Like I haven't been able to read anything since it because it was just a fucking ridiculous book. I wanted to list out everything that happened in it but when I look at just the story I'm like, well that sounds kind of good and then I'm like WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING. It had things that I like in it; romance, a murder mystery, a puzzle, random sci-fi elements. But somehow none of those things worked.
So bad, this book was so incredibly bad! I just can't even express how awful it was. There was one part that was so painful to listen to and I felt bad for the woman reading the book because she had to explain one of the characters 'guaranteed method' for curing the hiccups. WHY IS THAT IN THIS BOOK? WHY DOES THIS BOOK EXIST? I don't know. I'm especially curious how this book is on tape because part of me has always figured that paying someone to read your book and record it is like $$$ and not every book can do that but man, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
It was like Girls or Sex and the City but if the people were less interesting and maybe one of them was a killer. It was the damn, 'there's a killer in the midst of these rich assholes with pointless lives' that hooked me and it shouldn't have because OF COURSE it did not go anywhere. Plus it was easy to figure out which one it might have been since it was the only one in the group who did anything even remotely considered "dishonest." The potential murder scene (a friend commits suicide and then sends cryptic messages from the grave saying one of them is a killer and has promised to kill a shitty potential boyfriend of another member of the group. At a specific time and date, they've also promised to only kill them during that window?? plus they murdered a guy in a bar for saying the same friend with the potential shit head boyfriend was ugly.) came and went earlier in the book than I expected it to. Then there was this completely separate plot after it with the ugly friend wearing a mask and also playing mind altering music she created to make herself beautiful.
It was a bunch of dickheads in New York, being "creative" and one of them can make music that influences people, so it's randomly science fiction, I guess, but only when it suits the plot. Which it ends up doing when the woman who can make this music turns into glass and then shatters into a million pieces, slicing the main character for absolutely no reason other than drama.
Every time I think about this book I go crazy. Like I haven't been able to read anything since it because it was just a fucking ridiculous book. I wanted to list out everything that happened in it but when I look at just the story I'm like, well that sounds kind of good and then I'm like WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING. It had things that I like in it; romance, a murder mystery, a puzzle, random sci-fi elements. But somehow none of those things worked.
So bad, this book was so incredibly bad! I just can't even express how awful it was. There was one part that was so painful to listen to and I felt bad for the woman reading the book because she had to explain one of the characters 'guaranteed method' for curing the hiccups. WHY IS THAT IN THIS BOOK? WHY DOES THIS BOOK EXIST? I don't know. I'm especially curious how this book is on tape because part of me has always figured that paying someone to read your book and record it is like $$$ and not every book can do that but man, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
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July 17, 2018Didn't work for me at all. Muriel Spark could have written the shit out of a story with these elements: a beautiful costume designer who pretends to be ugly after her best friend commits suicide because (he claims) she doesn't love him; an unattractive, lovesick pianist whose compositions turn out to be literally mind-altering; a fragile woman who had once been kidnapped and kept in a coffin for three days and who owns a pottery shop where she sells awful pieces of pottery by carefully breaking them beforehand and then restoring them, so that when customers pick up the piece, it shatters in their hands and they think they've broken it (and then she cries until they buy it as per the store's You Break It, You Buy It policy); a former police officer who was injured in the previous woman's rescue operation and now works as a security guard at a nursing home, where residents conspire to stage fights among themselves so that he can break them up and feel useful; and poison pen letters from beyond the grave, in which the dead friend explains that one among their number is a confessed murderer who is planning to kill again.
So, I mean, I'd happily read about that zaniness, if it had been written in, say, a cold-blooded, cutting-edge tone. I don't mind surreal, I don't mind sitcom-y levels of characterization, I don't mind absurd, I don't mind magical realism. But this book was never consistent when it came to levels of absurdity, levels of reality, or emotional coherence. Characters just jumped to whatever conclusion was necessary to serve the facile story.
The group of friends here? There was no evidence of them being friends, aside telling-not-showing, and them often being in the same room as one another. There was no emotional depth.
There was also no intellectual depth. There are way deeper conversations about beauty and about attraction to be had than what is presented in this book. I was expecting something harder, more complicated, or at the very least funnier.
Easily the worst book I've finished this year, and I sure hope I don't read a worse one in the next few months.
So, I mean, I'd happily read about that zaniness, if it had been written in, say, a cold-blooded, cutting-edge tone. I don't mind surreal, I don't mind sitcom-y levels of characterization, I don't mind absurd, I don't mind magical realism. But this book was never consistent when it came to levels of absurdity, levels of reality, or emotional coherence. Characters just jumped to whatever conclusion was necessary to serve the facile story.
The group of friends here? There was no evidence of them being friends, aside telling-not-showing, and them often being in the same room as one another. There was no emotional depth.
There was also no intellectual depth. There are way deeper conversations about beauty and about attraction to be had than what is presented in this book. I was expecting something harder, more complicated, or at the very least funnier.
Easily the worst book I've finished this year, and I sure hope I don't read a worse one in the next few months.
April 15, 2015
I think this book should be called The Unfortunate Importance of Underpants Beauty so that people know that they are about to read a fucking hilarious book. But maybe not, because it was a surprise for me and I enjoyed the jokes even more. So weird and smart at the same time! I just finished it yesterday and don't even feel ready to talk about it. There is so much to digest. While I didn't feel like I got to know the characters very well—there were some inconsistencies—I enjoyed getting to know them.
How many times have you read a book and thought, "I have no idea where this author is taking me but I'M DOWN FOR IT!"? Usually I can get a feeling of where I am being led. But this story, which is part murder mystery, part reflection of physical beauty and ugliness, part comedy sketch, had me joyfully ripping through every single page. I wish there were more books like this. It was like healthy candy. It was so enjoyable I felt guilty, but it was so smart I could feel my brain expanding.
How many times have you read a book and thought, "I have no idea where this author is taking me but I'M DOWN FOR IT!"? Usually I can get a feeling of where I am being led. But this story, which is part murder mystery, part reflection of physical beauty and ugliness, part comedy sketch, had me joyfully ripping through every single page. I wish there were more books like this. It was like healthy candy. It was so enjoyable I felt guilty, but it was so smart I could feel my brain expanding.
March 15, 2015
I bought this book because I thought it was an interesting premise but it wasn't quite what I expected.
At times I struggled to read it, I found the chapter set in the apartment to prevent a potential murder bordering on the ridiculous, we were deep into the farce genre at that point but I persevered and I'm glad I did.
The whole plotline focusing on Lily and Strad I found very bizarre and unrealistic and the fantasy elements just didn't work in the middle of a story which, in the most part, was set in reality, albeit a very superficial reality, where the two main characters are completely obsessed with their looks.
Barb's story annoyed me because the author had decided that being fat was ugly and men don't find fat women attractive, I know from personal experience this is not the case.
Fat or thin, "ugly" or "beautiful", doesn't every person want to be loved for who they are and not just for appearance?
To me tho book was all about self obsession and the way we, not society, judge ourselves on what we look like and not on our abilities and talent.
This novel really made me think about beauty in all its forms but in the end my opinion didn't change. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if you can learn to love yourself and be comfortable in your own skin you will be a much happier person. Also, don't rely on other people loving you to enjoy the life you choose to live.
At times I struggled to read it, I found the chapter set in the apartment to prevent a potential murder bordering on the ridiculous, we were deep into the farce genre at that point but I persevered and I'm glad I did.
The whole plotline focusing on Lily and Strad I found very bizarre and unrealistic and the fantasy elements just didn't work in the middle of a story which, in the most part, was set in reality, albeit a very superficial reality, where the two main characters are completely obsessed with their looks.
Barb's story annoyed me because the author had decided that being fat was ugly and men don't find fat women attractive, I know from personal experience this is not the case.
Fat or thin, "ugly" or "beautiful", doesn't every person want to be loved for who they are and not just for appearance?
To me tho book was all about self obsession and the way we, not society, judge ourselves on what we look like and not on our abilities and talent.
This novel really made me think about beauty in all its forms but in the end my opinion didn't change. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if you can learn to love yourself and be comfortable in your own skin you will be a much happier person. Also, don't rely on other people loving you to enjoy the life you choose to live.
February 19, 2015
In an age where perfectly beautiful women are Photoshopped and plastic surgery is de rigueur for women in Hollywood, Amanda Filipacchi's novel is a timely tonic. As in her previous novels, Filipacchi brings a light comic touch--and a sprinkling of magical realism--to her examination of serious matters. The world of this novel is one in which music can be literally transformative, and a woman's depression can manifest physically by turning her skin brittle and reflective. But the fable-like qualities of the story are metaphors for Filipacchi's very trenchant observations about society, media culture and human behavior.
Friends Barb and Lily are at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, but true love is elusive for both of them. Barb's attempts to disguise her beauty by wearing a fat suit, contacts and a frizzy wig are hilarious, whereas Lily's transformation by way of her extraordinary talent poses the question of how much we value talent relative to physical attributes. Filipacchi has a truly offbeat sensibility, and the novel is full of wonderfully strange scenarios and laugh-out-loud lines. But everything here has a purpose, even including the stupendously cranky doorman who can't let Barb in or out of the building without insulting her ("I hope your evening was as dreadful as you are,") who ultimately turns out to be much more than comic relief.
Generally, I'm not a huge fan of magical realism and whimsy--but Filipacchi's clever use of these elements, and her sly humor, won me over. As a woman whose weight has fluctuated quite a lot over the years, and who has been treated dramatically differently according to body size/shape, I found this book very on point and enjoyed all the imaginative twists Filipacchi brought to the story.
Friends Barb and Lily are at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, but true love is elusive for both of them. Barb's attempts to disguise her beauty by wearing a fat suit, contacts and a frizzy wig are hilarious, whereas Lily's transformation by way of her extraordinary talent poses the question of how much we value talent relative to physical attributes. Filipacchi has a truly offbeat sensibility, and the novel is full of wonderfully strange scenarios and laugh-out-loud lines. But everything here has a purpose, even including the stupendously cranky doorman who can't let Barb in or out of the building without insulting her ("I hope your evening was as dreadful as you are,") who ultimately turns out to be much more than comic relief.
Generally, I'm not a huge fan of magical realism and whimsy--but Filipacchi's clever use of these elements, and her sly humor, won me over. As a woman whose weight has fluctuated quite a lot over the years, and who has been treated dramatically differently according to body size/shape, I found this book very on point and enjoyed all the imaginative twists Filipacchi brought to the story.
March 30, 2015
If you've never read Amanda Filipacchi yet, beware - this is by far her best novel yet. Even better than Nude Men, which I thought was a masterpiece.
April 3, 2015
This started out very promising, but devolved into a silly plot line that I could not bend my mind around. It had come highly recommended, so I was disappointed!
December 27, 2015
Deliciously entertaining, funny, skillfully written, and deeply moving.
To say anything about the characters would spoil the story, because their eccentric behavior is constantly surprising and as powerful as good plotting. I have started and abandoned so many books, bored by an author straining or showing off or in some way self-consciously creating “quirkiness.” I am never bored by Amanda Filipacchi’s unique characters because their idiosyncrasies sprout from a truthful foundation of human confusion, pain, and struggle.
The story involves a group of friends and their distress about appearance vs. reality, obsessive desire mislabeled as unrequited love, masks and murder. Also it unreels one of the most screamingly funny dinner party scenes I’ve ever read. People might categorize aspects of the book as social satire, magical realism, or a twisted contemporary adult fairytale, but these labels don’t describe what is here.
This little snippet, necessarily without context in order to preserve the mystery of this wonderful plot, describes what we do, how we confuse the tiny bits that we manage to see for a whole truth. With such a light and delighted hand that you might miss it, Amanda Filipacchi presents all the fractured pieces of our broken humanity. Her book is her literary gift to readers who understand what it is to be blind and shattered and who appreciate good writing, human complexity, and wild humor.
To say anything about the characters would spoil the story, because their eccentric behavior is constantly surprising and as powerful as good plotting. I have started and abandoned so many books, bored by an author straining or showing off or in some way self-consciously creating “quirkiness.” I am never bored by Amanda Filipacchi’s unique characters because their idiosyncrasies sprout from a truthful foundation of human confusion, pain, and struggle.
The story involves a group of friends and their distress about appearance vs. reality, obsessive desire mislabeled as unrequited love, masks and murder. Also it unreels one of the most screamingly funny dinner party scenes I’ve ever read. People might categorize aspects of the book as social satire, magical realism, or a twisted contemporary adult fairytale, but these labels don’t describe what is here.
”You took the few pieces of [a person] that were visible to you and you put them together into this little grotesque being that you assume is [the person you see] . . .”
This little snippet, necessarily without context in order to preserve the mystery of this wonderful plot, describes what we do, how we confuse the tiny bits that we manage to see for a whole truth. With such a light and delighted hand that you might miss it, Amanda Filipacchi presents all the fractured pieces of our broken humanity. Her book is her literary gift to readers who understand what it is to be blind and shattered and who appreciate good writing, human complexity, and wild humor.
February 28, 2015
I was very intrigued by the idea of this book but unfortunately it didn't deliver. I see comments labeling it "magical" and "hilarious" but I didn't find either of those adjectives appropriate. I tend to LIKE books with a bit of magical realism but I was not able to suspend disbelief in this book. Neil Gaiman's Ocean At the End of the Lane is a perfect example of a recent book where the magical elements flowed seamlessly with the story and helped me both enjoy and understand the book better. This book felt more like Eyes Wide Shut to me. No strange sexual things but I could not understand the characters parading around in masks and music that transformed people. As I was reading it I felt like, "that would not happen."
This book seems to come from the author's point of view about beauty and she's crafted a "novel" to share it. For me nothing about the characters (very stock and flat) or the way things transpired convinced me that I should agree with her point of view.
This book seems to come from the author's point of view about beauty and she's crafted a "novel" to share it. For me nothing about the characters (very stock and flat) or the way things transpired convinced me that I should agree with her point of view.
May 25, 2015
THAT WAS AWFUL! I feel robbed! What the hell was that!
There was not one good thing about this book! I think that this is the first time in my life to be angry with myself for reading a book!
The narration was stupid and irritating, but I let it pass. The Characters had no depth to them and they were merely objects used to convey an idea which the author wanted. The story line is a cliche! and that ending! Oh dear lord... pure ughhhh!
There was not one good thing about this book! I think that this is the first time in my life to be angry with myself for reading a book!
The narration was stupid and irritating, but I let it pass. The Characters had no depth to them and they were merely objects used to convey an idea which the author wanted. The story line is a cliche! and that ending! Oh dear lord... pure ughhhh!
March 23, 2015
This was a murder mystery wanna-be. Instead, the characters were annoying and whiny. The plot was so inane that I put it down in frustration. It started out as an interesting premise with Barb hiding her beauty behind a fat suit but then she used her disguise to shame men. And that was just one of the weird plot lines. Ugh!
February 28, 2022
I was a little intimidated by this but I ended up loving it! I’m not sure I completely got all of the magical realism elements but that didn’t stop me from really enjoying the story and falling in love with the characters
“Why is it that a connection that seems to have nothing to do with looks - because it feels so much deeper than that, like a connection of minds and souls - is actually entirely dependent on looks?”
“Why is it that a connection that seems to have nothing to do with looks - because it feels so much deeper than that, like a connection of minds and souls - is actually entirely dependent on looks?”
March 8, 2015
It's not very often I rate a book with 5 stars, but this one is absolutely unbelievable. It's part fable, part fantasy, part mystery, and all extremely GOOD. I haven't enjoyed something quite so much in decades.
Barb, Penelope, Lily, Georgia and Jack are friends--close friends, though very different from each other. There was a fifth friend, Gabriel, but he is no longer with them, having committed suicide some two years before the events in the book begin. His suicide affected them all, but no one more than Barb--who radically changes her life because of it, going from drop-dead gorgeous to frumpy, overweight and nondescript with a clever disguise she wears everywhere, all the time. She has obtained a fat suit, wears dumpy clothing, a frizzy, gray wig and glasses--even fake ugly teeth. And why? Because she has had an epiphany of sorts after Gabriel's suicide. He was in love with her, and the love was unrequited, unreciprocated, and he could not cope with it. Barb blames herself. And so she wears her disguise in order to show the world that she does not care about herself in any way. Underneath, she is still beautiful, but she absolutely does not want the world to know it; especially anyone who would want to have a romantic relationship with her. She wants romance and love, but on different terms--those terms where beauty does not matter and no one would kill himself for her because he felt she was out of his league.
Her other friends cope in various ways that show they, too, are broken by Gabriel's death, and by life in general. Georgia writes luminous, critically-acclaimed novels, but after losing her latest "in-progress" work on a laptop she inadvertently leaves in a cab, she begins to doubt everything she has written as merely mediocre. Lily is a composer and musician whose work is so riveting it has powers, literally, to change the way people see and think. She, too, is in love with a man who does not reciprocate her feelings, and it obsesses her to find the perfect composition--one that will change his mind. Jack is physically damaged from being too selfless, injuring himself in an act of heroism. And Penelope makes ugly ceramic pots that actually put people off, until they try to handle them and they break. She has created them that way on purpose, so she can make money in her shop. "You break it, you buy it," reads the sign. And she makes money.
These five are dubbed the Knights of Creation, and get together frequently just to enjoy each other's company while they create their art (Barb is a costume designer for theatre and film.) And they speculate on life and love, in smart and sometimes funny ways, and ponder the importance of beauty. If this sounds light and frivolous, rest assured it is anything BUT. Lily is not attractive. She thinks it is her physical imperfection that prevents her from happiness. Barb IS beautiful and thinks it is her physical perfection that prevents the same thing. Georgia and Penelope each make art that screams ugliness while forcing respect, and Jack looks on with a non-artistic but equally flawed world-view. When the Knights of Creation get together for a Night of Creation, they allow themselves to shine in the most witty and sometimes downright profound ways. Then the unthinkable happens.
Gabriel sends them a letter. He arranged it before his suicide--and it tells of a secret so shocking, so amazing, that they must deal with it now--or face destruction. And from the revelation of this secret to the resolution (or the pre-resolution, actually) that takes place, occur some of the funniest and most incredible passages I have ever read. I will not spoil the surprise for you; but the way these friends deal with this shocker is both hilarious and disturbing, as well as amazing. And what follows is even more so.
Each of the friends must come to a realization of his and her own during these events. And yes, they do--but at no time is it anything like you might expect.
Amanda Filipacchi has crafted a superb tale that carries the reader along even through some of the more unreal and fantastic parts, with humor, pathos, and surreality, turning what might have been a boring exploration into beauty and its consequences into a profound treatise on what and where physical attraction step through our lives. And it is so much more than that--because this talented writer not only addresses that issue, but the greater ones of self-sacrifice, personal achievement and love. This is not a woman's book--and it is not a book that should be taken lightly. It speaks to our core beliefs about love and beauty, but also about everything else we hold dear to us: family, relationships, and the reflection of our lives through media and the arts. Nothing--not one word in this book--is trivially written. It contains deep, and deeper, truths everyone should read and think about. It is a masterpiece.
Barb, Penelope, Lily, Georgia and Jack are friends--close friends, though very different from each other. There was a fifth friend, Gabriel, but he is no longer with them, having committed suicide some two years before the events in the book begin. His suicide affected them all, but no one more than Barb--who radically changes her life because of it, going from drop-dead gorgeous to frumpy, overweight and nondescript with a clever disguise she wears everywhere, all the time. She has obtained a fat suit, wears dumpy clothing, a frizzy, gray wig and glasses--even fake ugly teeth. And why? Because she has had an epiphany of sorts after Gabriel's suicide. He was in love with her, and the love was unrequited, unreciprocated, and he could not cope with it. Barb blames herself. And so she wears her disguise in order to show the world that she does not care about herself in any way. Underneath, she is still beautiful, but she absolutely does not want the world to know it; especially anyone who would want to have a romantic relationship with her. She wants romance and love, but on different terms--those terms where beauty does not matter and no one would kill himself for her because he felt she was out of his league.
Her other friends cope in various ways that show they, too, are broken by Gabriel's death, and by life in general. Georgia writes luminous, critically-acclaimed novels, but after losing her latest "in-progress" work on a laptop she inadvertently leaves in a cab, she begins to doubt everything she has written as merely mediocre. Lily is a composer and musician whose work is so riveting it has powers, literally, to change the way people see and think. She, too, is in love with a man who does not reciprocate her feelings, and it obsesses her to find the perfect composition--one that will change his mind. Jack is physically damaged from being too selfless, injuring himself in an act of heroism. And Penelope makes ugly ceramic pots that actually put people off, until they try to handle them and they break. She has created them that way on purpose, so she can make money in her shop. "You break it, you buy it," reads the sign. And she makes money.
These five are dubbed the Knights of Creation, and get together frequently just to enjoy each other's company while they create their art (Barb is a costume designer for theatre and film.) And they speculate on life and love, in smart and sometimes funny ways, and ponder the importance of beauty. If this sounds light and frivolous, rest assured it is anything BUT. Lily is not attractive. She thinks it is her physical imperfection that prevents her from happiness. Barb IS beautiful and thinks it is her physical perfection that prevents the same thing. Georgia and Penelope each make art that screams ugliness while forcing respect, and Jack looks on with a non-artistic but equally flawed world-view. When the Knights of Creation get together for a Night of Creation, they allow themselves to shine in the most witty and sometimes downright profound ways. Then the unthinkable happens.
Gabriel sends them a letter. He arranged it before his suicide--and it tells of a secret so shocking, so amazing, that they must deal with it now--or face destruction. And from the revelation of this secret to the resolution (or the pre-resolution, actually) that takes place, occur some of the funniest and most incredible passages I have ever read. I will not spoil the surprise for you; but the way these friends deal with this shocker is both hilarious and disturbing, as well as amazing. And what follows is even more so.
Each of the friends must come to a realization of his and her own during these events. And yes, they do--but at no time is it anything like you might expect.
Amanda Filipacchi has crafted a superb tale that carries the reader along even through some of the more unreal and fantastic parts, with humor, pathos, and surreality, turning what might have been a boring exploration into beauty and its consequences into a profound treatise on what and where physical attraction step through our lives. And it is so much more than that--because this talented writer not only addresses that issue, but the greater ones of self-sacrifice, personal achievement and love. This is not a woman's book--and it is not a book that should be taken lightly. It speaks to our core beliefs about love and beauty, but also about everything else we hold dear to us: family, relationships, and the reflection of our lives through media and the arts. Nothing--not one word in this book--is trivially written. It contains deep, and deeper, truths everyone should read and think about. It is a masterpiece.
June 1, 2015
Over the course of four novels, Amanda Filipacchi has carved out a singular niche for herself. While her casts of upscale bohemians seeking emotional and creative fulfillment in the sort of glossily-depicted Manhattan that wouldn't be out of place in a Woody Allen film might at first seem to be the stuff of any number of fluffy urban rom-coms, the direction she takes them in is decidedly her own, creating instead droll, absurdist black comedies shot through with perversity and touches of magical realism.
Her latest, The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty, is no exception. Part comedy of manners, part drawing-room mystery, and part outright fantasy, it tells of two women, both members of a sort of salon-cum-support group of artists and writers facetiously dubbed "The Knights of Creation." One, Barb, a beautiful costume designer, hides her looks behind a fat suit and assorted prostheses in the hopes of one day being loved purely for herself. The other, the genuinely ugly Lily, can compose music that makes anyone fall helplessly in love with whatever she's writing about (in a typically Filipacchian touch, this magical ability is treated completely offhandedly, with Lily matter-of-factly selling her compositions to stores to encourage sales), but who despairs that the man she's set her sights on, the handsome but superficial Strad, will never be able to see past her appearance. When Barb learns that one of the Knights has sworn to murder Strad on a certain day for his treatment of Lily, the group reluctantly bands together to encourage their romance in the hopes of staving this off, leading to the novel's comic highlight, a dinner party on the day in question that is a minor masterpiece of escalating slapstick awkwardness as the gang all but fall over themselves trying to protect the oblivious Strad from the supposed killer in their midst.
Still, for all the screwball comedy antics and flights of surrealist whimsy, Filipacchi has a very real point to make about how our modern society values appearance over substance and how this can turn beauty into both a blessing and a curse. If her stories are, as many have called them, modern fairy tales, they're ones that remind us that, like the stories of Perrault and the Grimm Brothers before her, a light-hearted or fantastical narrative can often serve as a vehicle for conveying painful underlying truths.
Her latest, The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty, is no exception. Part comedy of manners, part drawing-room mystery, and part outright fantasy, it tells of two women, both members of a sort of salon-cum-support group of artists and writers facetiously dubbed "The Knights of Creation." One, Barb, a beautiful costume designer, hides her looks behind a fat suit and assorted prostheses in the hopes of one day being loved purely for herself. The other, the genuinely ugly Lily, can compose music that makes anyone fall helplessly in love with whatever she's writing about (in a typically Filipacchian touch, this magical ability is treated completely offhandedly, with Lily matter-of-factly selling her compositions to stores to encourage sales), but who despairs that the man she's set her sights on, the handsome but superficial Strad, will never be able to see past her appearance. When Barb learns that one of the Knights has sworn to murder Strad on a certain day for his treatment of Lily, the group reluctantly bands together to encourage their romance in the hopes of staving this off, leading to the novel's comic highlight, a dinner party on the day in question that is a minor masterpiece of escalating slapstick awkwardness as the gang all but fall over themselves trying to protect the oblivious Strad from the supposed killer in their midst.
Still, for all the screwball comedy antics and flights of surrealist whimsy, Filipacchi has a very real point to make about how our modern society values appearance over substance and how this can turn beauty into both a blessing and a curse. If her stories are, as many have called them, modern fairy tales, they're ones that remind us that, like the stories of Perrault and the Grimm Brothers before her, a light-hearted or fantastical narrative can often serve as a vehicle for conveying painful underlying truths.
October 25, 2015
I was torn rating this, it was a quick read for me. It started off strong with a strong protagonist who was complaining about her appearance and consulted a therapist. I don't have a lot of experience with counseling but the way the counselor was being biased was hysterical. I am not sure if the author intent was to make the readers laugh but it was hilarious in some parts. Also her mother was just as bad, never being afraid to tell that she is fat and unappealing. One of the rare novels when the title of the book mirrored with the contents.
Although I skimmed more pages than I would have liked, I could not bring myself to give it below an average rating. It had way too many things going on at once, thus I quickly got confused at the direction of the story. It had many mini plots that was not really consistent. Yet I did like some parts, hence the overall rating of a three, and I do plan on reading more novels by Filipacchi.
This book fell flat on consistency, but the characterization was remarkable.
Although I skimmed more pages than I would have liked, I could not bring myself to give it below an average rating. It had way too many things going on at once, thus I quickly got confused at the direction of the story. It had many mini plots that was not really consistent. Yet I did like some parts, hence the overall rating of a three, and I do plan on reading more novels by Filipacchi.
This book fell flat on consistency, but the characterization was remarkable.
April 15, 2015
This book was bad. I was very interested in the premise of the importance of beauty and the friendship of two women along with a suspenseful murder plot. The story begins introducing you to Barb, whom I felt could have been a very interesting character on her own. Yet, the story takes a long and ridiculous turn with uninteresting characters, a weird murder plot, Barbs friend Lily sad obsession with a superficial man while spending the entire relationship wearing a mask. Sounds interesting but it really wasn't. There were parts to the story that I assumed were meant to be funny but just came across as ridiculous. The fantasy elements didn't make since in the story and felt very out of place. I just wanted it to be over but I made myself finish the book shaking my head the entire time.
April 30, 2015
I really enjoyed this quirky, thought-provoking book! I picked it up at the library simply based on the title. I am interested in the emphasis our society places on beauty and was excited to read a novel speaking to this. Filipacchi did this in such a unique and entertaining way. This book really made me think, but also made me laugh and connect to the characters. I highly recommend this book, just be prepared for a unique read!
February 17, 2021
1. I loved it because it made you suspend reality in sucha realistic way and there was no other way for that story to told so powerfully like it made it more conceptual than just a story you have to relate to because theres no way you can compare it to your real life
2. The characters were so dynamic and represented so many different things
3. It had everything i loved about a novel: romance and mystery but not in a forced cheesy way and more in a contrast of deep and funny
2. The characters were so dynamic and represented so many different things
3. It had everything i loved about a novel: romance and mystery but not in a forced cheesy way and more in a contrast of deep and funny
January 21, 2015
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
The novel is a compelling read and weaves together a story about beauty and its value in our society. I enjoyed the themes of friendship, love, creativity, and shallowness.
Some of the plot devices were a bit weak; though all in all I found myself wanting to find how it all ended up.
The novel is a compelling read and weaves together a story about beauty and its value in our society. I enjoyed the themes of friendship, love, creativity, and shallowness.
Some of the plot devices were a bit weak; though all in all I found myself wanting to find how it all ended up.
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