In the South, one notion of “being ugly” implies inappropriate or coarse behavior that transgresses social norms of courtesy. While popular stereotypes of the region often highlight southern belles as the epitome of feminine power, women writers from the South frequently stray from this convention and invest their fiction with female protagonists described as ugly or chastised for behaving that way. Through this divergence, “ugly” can be a force for challenging the strictures of normative southern gender roles and marriage economies. In Being Ugly: Southern Women Writers and Social Rebellion, Monica Carol Miller reveals how authors from Margaret Mitchell to Monique Truong employ “ugly” characters to upend the expectations of patriarchy and open up more possibilities for southern female identity. Previous scholarship often conflates ugliness with such categories as the grotesque, plain, or abject, but Miller disassociates these negative descriptors from a group of characters created by southern women writers. Focusing on how such characters appear prone to rebellious and socially inappropriate behavior, Miller argues that ugliness subverts assumptions about gender by identifying those who are unsuitable for the expected roles of marriage and motherhood. As opposed to familiar courtship and marriage plots, Miller locates in fiction by southern women writers an alternative genealogy, the ugly plot. This narrative tradition highlights female characters whose rebellion offers a space for re-imagining alternative lives and households in opposition to the status quo. Reading works by canonical writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O’Connor, and Eudora Welty, along with recent texts by contemporary authors like Helen Ellis, Lee Smith, and Jesmyn Ward, Being Ugly offers an important new perspective on how southern women writers confront regressive ideologies that insist upon limited roles for women.

A beaut story about one very ugly kid. Robert Hoge was born with a tumour in the middle of his face, and legs that weren't much use. There wasn't another baby like him in the whole of Australia, let alone Brisbane. But the rest of his life wasn't so unusual: he had a mum and a dad, brothers and sisters, friends at school and in his street. He had childhood scrapes and days at the beach; fights with his family and trouble with his teachers. He had doctors, too: lots of doctors who, when he was still very young, removed that tumour from his face and operated on his legs, then stitched him back together. He still looked different, though. He still looked ... ugly. UGLY is the true story of how an extraordinary boy grew up to have an ordinary life, and how that became his greatest achievement of all.

Envy, irritation, paranoia—in contrast to powerful and dynamic negative emotions like anger, these non-cathartic states of feeling are associated with situations in which action is blocked or suspended. In her examination of the cultural forms to which these affects give rise, Sianne Ngai suggests that these minor and more politically ambiguous feelings become all the more suited for diagnosing the character of late modernity. Along with her inquiry into the aesthetics of unprestigious negative affects such as irritation, envy, and disgust, Ngai examines a racialized affect called “animatedness,” and a paradoxical synthesis of shock and boredom called “stuplimity.” She explores the politically equivocal work of these affective concepts in the cultural contexts where they seem most at stake, from academic feminist debates to the Harlem Renaissance, from late-twentieth-century American poetry to Hollywood film and network television. Through readings of Herman Melville, Nella Larsen, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Hitchcock, Gertrude Stein, Ralph Ellison, John Yau, and Bruce Andrews, among others, Ngai shows how art turns to ugly feelings as a site for interrogating its own suspended agency in the affirmative culture of a market society, where art is tolerated as essentially unthreatening. Ngai mobilizes the aesthetics of ugly feelings to investigate not only ideological and representational dilemmas in literature—with a particular focus on those inflected by gender and race—but also blind spots in contemporary literary and cultural criticism. Her work maps a major intersection of literary studies, media and cultural studies, feminist studies, and aesthetic theory.

Traces the chaotic breakdown of a friendship that shapes and unravels the identities of two rebellious girls in the wake of a stalker's predations.

Discovering The Power of Ugly will cost you your pride. You will learn to take off your religious masks and stand naked before God. Ugly will liberate you from a false spirituality which pretends that being spiritual means that you stop being a real, flawed human being. Ugly is a celebration of the beauty of God's grace reflected through our weaknesses, not our strengths.

Purdy does not celebrate the wonders of our lives; he digs under the flesh, deals with the howling of our nighttime existence, the rough arithmetic of our dreams. He is also a very funny writer, one who captures the particular idiom of women and men...

The popular LGBTQ advice columnist and writer presents a memoir-in-essays chronicling his journey growing up as a queer, mixed-race kid in America's heartland to becoming the "Chicano Carrie Bradshaw" of his generation.

In the Ugly Side of Being Beautiful, Charity Majors shares real experiences and insights on what's really going on inside of us, how we dim our light, and how we all struggle to feel beautiful - even when we truly are. She raises questions about why women feel the need to tear each other down, how to build your tribe, and how to know and grow in the gifts your Creator has given you. You may laugh, you may cry. You will finally feel understood. And you will be challenged to own your beauty, your purpose and your life - inside and out - and shine bright, no matter what anyone else may say.

Essays reprinted from the website Black girl dangerous.

In today's world of supplements, celebrity diets and social media, it's very easy to be hard on ourselves about the way we look. With all this pressure to strive for 'perfection' aesthetically, it is easy to forget how damaging this can be psychologically. Michelle Elman is a leading part of the body positivity movement that has been gathering momentum to liberate people from these unrealistic standards, recognise that all bodies are equally valuable and broaden the billboard definitions of beauty. Am I Ugly? is this inspiring woman's compelling and deeply personal memoir that describes her childhood experiences of life-threatening health problems, long stays in hospital and fifteen complex surgeries that left her scarred, both mentally and physically. The narrative follows Michelle's journey from illness to health, and from childhood to adulthood as she deals with her body-confidence issues to embrace both her scars and her body - and help others to do the same. This remarkable book grapples with the wider implications of Michelle's experiences and the complex interplay between beauty and illness. 'Michelle Elman is Bo-Po personified. She shows that we should never hide the things that make us who we are' Curvy Kate. 'A 21-year-old life coach in London has become an Instagram star and viral inspiration after sharing her bikini photos and an inspiring video' Fox News. 'Michelle's post has certainly made an impact on so many people who needed a pick-me-up, and we just hope that anyone else feeling insecure due to clothes sizes somehow find themselves scrolling onto her post, too' Metro.