Book Description

"It's what's on the inside that counts," says everyone and anyone who's ever been concerned with a teenage girl's self-esteem. Apparently, those seven words--or nine if you're really picky about contractions--will fix a lot. They'll fix insecurities. They'll fix self-consciousness. They'll even fix the fact that none of us can open a magazine or turn on the TV without being bombarded by images of a million pretty girls. So thank every ounce of goodness for those seven words. ...Or not. Any teenage girl will tell you it's not that simple. One person can easily say, "Sheep are blue," but a billion drawings, movies, and farms will show you that they're white--and in a few very rare cases, black. Beauty is the same way. It will never matter how many times that one person tells us to look inside ourselves if the world around us doesn't. As a result, we develop this obsession with the way we look and what people think of the way we look. It can be something as simple and innocent as the clothes we wear, or it can be as dark and scary as an eating disorder. In the United States alone, there are ten million girls suffering from anorexia and/or bulimia. 95% of those girls are between the ages of 12 and 25, setting anorexia at the third most common illness among teenagers and resulting in a death rate 12 times higher than the norm. That's ten millions girls, 95% very young girls, who really don't know they're beautiful--who think beauty lies within the size label on their clothes or the flawlessness of their skin. I'm here to tell them--and you--that it doesn't. As a 17 year old, I know "it's what's on the inside that counts" doesn't lessen the perfection of Heidi Klum's legs or Taylor Swift's--everything. I know that the battle with popularity isn't over just because we say we don't care. I know what it feels like to be a teenage girl because I am one. I have similar insecurities, experiences, and friends. I make the same mistakes, love the same boy band celebrities, and probably hear the same naggy protests from my parents. I understand what it's like to be a teenager. That's why I wrote this book, because I really, truly, and whole-heartedly understand the ups and downs of a teenager's usually confusing life. You as in "ugly" is a search for truth in the importance of inner beauty. Is there such a thing? More importantly, is it actually beautiful? It took me an "aha!" encounter with a homeless mother and daughter to finally answer: yes and yes. I saw what inner beauty looked like, acted like, and felt like. Now it seems only fair that you know too. In this book, I've chosen seventeen real girls that have qualities truly capable of proving the existence of inner beauty. They're qualities with a story. They are qualities that sum up a beauty deeper than make-up and money and clothes. They are qualities of inner beauty, something we shouldn't be pushing aside anymore. Author Bio: Lia Emily Ho began writing her first book, You as In Ugly at 16. She quickly discovered despite her youth, a teenager's observations and insights were worth sharing and finished the book a month before her 17th birthday. Born in Los Angeles, she currently lives in Honolulu with her family and tabby cat. keywords: Beauty, Inner Beauty, Girls, Self-Esteem, Popularity, Humor, Values, Fashion, Boys, Teenagers