“When my oldest sister had her nose done, I felt like someone had castrated my family. The day I made a commitment to my nose and vowed to keep it — not as a burden, but as an inheritance — was the day I reclaimed control over my image.” 

Thank you to New Vessel Press for sending an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Almost every woman could write a similar story to many of those in Ugliness, especially those who grew up as a minority in a majority of different looking women, but few could write this story with the artistry that Hilal has. Even the shortest chapter and smallest poem brings the cutting pain of feeling Other and the acute worthlessness of ugliness, especially in pre-teen and teenage years. This book brought me flashbacks to conversations with the women in my life - if you start hair removal on that part of your arm you’ll have to go all the way up to there, remove your eyebrow hair here but not there, suck in your stomach, don’t slouch but don’t be haughty, don’t smile so large. 

Some of it feels a little heavy-handed: “The structurally Other cannot employ external simulation to escape entrenched fascist ideology in society. And entrenched fascist ideology is never simply looking to reject the deviant nose as such; it is out to reject the very existence of the human to whom the nose belongs.” However, most of the book hit home and has continued to resonate.

Hilal also introduced me to histories I was unaware of: most memorably the rise of plastic surgery in early 1930s Germany from a Jewish doctor who came to specialize in rhinoplasty for those with “Jewish-looking” noses, as well as the “revolt of the freaks” when the “prodigies” of a 1898 Barnum & Bailey Circus called for a strike until the show stopped calling them “freaks.” She is also flawlessly mixes mediums and topics in this relatively small book: poems, history, photographs, memoir, essays, surreal fiction, and more.

As eugenics and fascism are making a horrific return, this book is is important for calling on everyone to investigate the ways society discriminates against the “ugly” and to look within and stop our own ideas of beauty from defining who we see as having inherent worth. 

Ugliness is available February 11, 2025.