A young woman recently relocated to California with dreams of becoming a journalist is stricken with a brain trauma and must work to regain her independence in this "must read" memoir (Mary Karr, author of The Liar's Club ) "Having just graduated from college, Krug and her dreamy French boyfriend, Claude (a man given to wearing his button–down shirts buttoned halfway up), leave the flatlands of Kansas for Santa Barbara, California—there, Krug finds a reporting job covering high society 'gardens, weddings, and pets,' and Claude gets a gig with a local paper. Young, in love, gainfully employed, and living close to the coast, post–collegiate life couldn't be better—day after day 'they drink Mexican beer and wear bathing suits indoors. They do drugs and wander through organic markets, spotting celebrities.' But just weeks after settling in, Krug suffers a 'severe' cavernous angioma in her brain. She gets dizzy, she can't walk, and it soon becomes clear that brain surgery is inevitable, and life will never be the same. In gracefully stark prose, Krug narrates in the third person the implosion of what should've been her gilded life, the sad and prolonged dissolution of her relationship with Claude, and her transformation from 'the kind of girl other girls only pretended to like' to a wife, mother, and PhD candidate back in Kansas. Interspersed throughout are fictional imaginings of the perspectives of her loved ones as she endures numerous surgeries and years of physically and emotionally excruciating rehab. Supplemented with facsimiles of the 'Illustrated Facial Exercises' she used to work damaged muscles, as well as other medical documents, Krug's story is an immediate, unsparing, and beautifully rendered account of loss and recovery. — Publishers Weekly , starred review "The narrative is skillfully written, it hovers disjointedly between the active and passive voices, so we get to live snapshots of moments in time. (...) This form of writing makes the book an easy as well as a compulsive read, the reader's interest is held till the end."-- Book Pleasures "My face may no longer be classically symmetrical, but I still have the feeling of beauty. The feeling of beauty has nothing to do with perfection. It is about self-respect. It is about caring for oneself. I try to be a little less careless now. Being careless never felt right."--excerpt from author guest post in the Huffington Post . "I started to realise that even though it often doesn't show on the outside, we all have experiences in our lives that damage us and threaten to hold us back. Mine just happen to be visible."--excerpt from op-ed in The Guardian "In this memoir, the author recounts the life-threatening brain trauma that severely disabled her at age 22. Her fight for recovery is inspirational. Today, Krug is a wife, mother, teacher and Ph.D. candidate."-- Sacramento Bee Louise Krug is an Assistant Professor of Nonfiction Writing at Washburn University, in Topeka, Kansas. Some of her recent work has appeared in River Teeth , Word Riot , Parcel , and The Huffington Post . She lives in Lawrence, Kansas with her husband and children. Louise: Amended by Louise Krug Part One: The Incident Chapter One Two weeks before it happened, my boyfriend, Claude, hooked me up with the West Coast editor of Us Magazine. The editor said she might have some work for me. Britney Spears and her husband, Kevin Federline, were rumored to be on their way to Santa Barbara. Could I meet a reporter from the magazine, Evan, at the Four Seasons resort in one hour? I wore a red dress. I’d coated my long, blond hair with a silicon sheen, and worn the heels everyone was wearing that year: pointy, naked on the sides, ankle straps. Evan said Wow when I walked up to him in the lobby. He gave me my mission as we sat at the hotel bar: Follow Britney around for two days, gather any information I could, and don’t get caught. I would be paid $300 a day, $500 a day on weekends, to answer a list of questions. Was she pregnant? Did she smoke? What did she eat? Any cellulite? Etc. Evan had been covering Britney for years and couldn’t get too close without being recognized. I was a pretty girl with an unknown facenot unusual for the Four Seasons resort in Santa Barbara. I would not stand out. Evan and I stood on the lawn beneath the lit window of Britney’s suite. We could see the blue light from a TV. They’re probably fucking. See you tomorrow,” he said. Early the next morning I was back at the hotel with everything Evan had told me to bring: a few changes of clothes to minimize recognition; sunglasses and a bikini; a notepad and pen. I was more nervous than I’d ever been. I coached myself during the drive there. I wanted to hear it said out loud, that this was really happening. That I had gotten this chance. I was twenty-two. I’d just moved to Santa Barbara from Kansas. This opportunity was as big as I’d known how to dream at the time. I went to the salon where Brit