Faceless by Alyssa Sheinmel is another book I selected to review for the secondary librarians. This one is a nice little realistic fiction to have in your collection.
It starts off with a simply early morning run, but it quickly goes wrong with a pop up storm. Maisie is right by a power line struck by lightning. The sparks rain down and basically melts her face off.
Maisie is lucky to be so close to home. She also lucky enough to be in city with a fantastic hospital for burn victims, who just happens to have the best doctor for face transplants. Her luck continues when a young lady with similar genes dies in an automobile crash and she's a body donor. Maisie ends up complaining throughout the book about how everyone keeps telling her how lucky she is. In fact, it kind of got on my nerves! Just hang in there because she does finally realize the perks of being able to live her life, even with a face transplant. Don't get me wrong - I get the fact it would be absolutely horrible to have your face completely destroyed, get a face transplant based on the fact someone else had to die, and then try to live a "normal" life. The story does take an uphill turn when Maisie goes to group therapy. Basically boils down to the philosophy - when you think you've got it bad, somebody else has it even worse.
I believe the true heroes of this book were Maisie's best friend, Serena, and her boyfriend, Chirag. These two teens are fantastic and real throughout the entire book, even when Maisie is whining. I would recommend this book just on the basis of these two kind souls. Perfect models for how to be a good person to those you care about.
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