[Jones] long believed that the only way to deserve anyone else’s respect, much less desire, was to 'be extraordinary in all other aspects,' brilliant and witty and humorous and cool. If the book is any proof, Jones is all these things. But there’s more to this gorgeous, vividly alive memoir ... Jones concisely sketches her family, childhood and adult life, but she also chronicles a series of adventures ... When she was a child, Jones’s father told her bedtime stories. 'My father understood a good story is a circle that finds the hero back where they started, but with new knowledge,' she writes. Easy Beauty is a good story in this way.
Transcendent ... In keeping us close as she navigates the world, Jones lets us in on the effort required to move through it in a disabled body. She translates this effort to the page clearly, elucidating movement that able-bodied readers might take for granted ... The power of this memoir: Jones so closely analyzes the relationship between work and beauty, pain and pleasure, without ascribing a moral value to either, hinting at conclusions but then challenging you when you think you’ve settled on one ... Quiet profundity ... Jones’s genius lies in her fluency in ambivalence. If she lands firmly on any truism, it’s that nothing—and more significantly, no one—is just one thing.
Jones’ soul-stretching, breathtaking existential memoir chronicles her reclaiming of body, mind, and self ... A profound, impressive, and wiser-than-wise contemplation of the way Jones is viewed by others, her own collusion in those views, and whether any of this can be shifted. She shares her ultimate answer—yes—in superlative writing, rendering complex emotion and unparalleled insight in skillfully precise language ... Her debut is a game-changing gift to readers.
