The Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy is the autobiography of a girl who turns her misfortune into an encouraging, engaging and compelling story. At the age of nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced cruel taunts from her classmates. She spent the next twenty years being treated differently because she "looked different" from the rest of the world. Yet, despite all the difficulties in his life, Grealy overcame childhood cancer, permanent disfigurement, and, finally, the deep, bottomless pain called ugliness; she learned to embrace her inner self and true beauty. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Lucy Grealy was born in Ireland. Her family consisted of her parents, her two older brothers, an older sister, a twin sister, and Lucy herself. Grealy's family had immigrated to America and Sarah, Lucy's twin sister, and Lucy were four years old. Lucy's life was perfectly normal until a simple accident in fourth grade, when the right side of her jaw collided with Joni Friedman's head in Physical Education. Due to this pure accident, Lucy Grealy's life was completely changed. At the age of nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer called Ewing's sarcoma, where the reasonable chance of survival was 5%. Thanks to radical surgery that involved the removal of a third of her jaw and years of radiation and chemotherapy, Lucy Grealy recovered from the disease, despite her low chances of survival. However, the physical pain he suffered proved much easier to bear than the sense of disfigurement and isolation from other children. In high school, Lucy's worst fears came true. Every day she was teased by a group of boys about her appearance. Often, after her daily encounter with them, she only ended up hating herself. Lucy became convinced that only facial reconstruction and a restored appearance would make life bearable. When Lucy looked in the mirror after her first reconstructive surgery, a large strip of foreign skin repelled her. He looked forward to the next operation, the one he thought would solve the problem. Still, he knew better than to expect perfection. After repeated resorptions of skin and bone grafts, Lucy Grealy mused, “How could I give up the possibility that it could work, that I could finally finally fix my face, fix my life, my soul?” And she promised herself several times: "When my face settles down, then I will begin to live." During her senior year of high school, Lucy applied and was accepted to Sarah Lawrence College with a generous scholarship. After enrolling in a poetry class, reading and writing poetry brought together everything that had always been important to Lucy. He thought that language itself, words and images, could be crafted and shaped into containers for the truths and beauty he had long yearned for. Finally, after 18 years and nearly 30 operations, Lucy succeeded. When congratulated on her new face, Lucy found herself reluctant to examine it in the mirror. "Without another operation to pin all my hopes on," she reflected, "I was completely alone. And now something inside me started to miss me." Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay For Lucy, the transformation was one..