Look at Me: A Novel
by Jennifer Egan

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Book Reviews of Look at Me: A Novel

Book Review: Identities Lost and Found
Summary: 5 Stars

The older Charlotte is a 28-year-old-beauty (or anyway was before her face gets redone) who admits to having been born 35 years before the story takes place. She's a far from super fashion model who makes the playoffs but never gets to the final round (what she calls her "mirrored room") has her face repaired in Rockford (it now sports 80 titanium screws), her home town, and then returns to New York--to find nobody recognizes her anymore.

The younger Charlotte, 16, the daughter of the older Charlotte's high school friend, is an unconventionally troubled teen with an attitude, a brother who's being treated for leukemia, and a dotty uncle.

Also making an appearance are an alcoholic private detective and the mysterious Z, terrorist-math teacher, whose life takes a dramatic turn after he dines at a Micky D's.

Egan skillfully interweaves the story lines and creates some hilarious moments--among them a fashion photographer who finds a creative use for razors, perhaps the most bizarre attempted suicide in recent American literature, a reference to a tv documentary about the making of a "making of" movie, and a climactic attempt to re-create on film what is now Charlotte's (in)famous auto accident for an Internet Website, to which she has sold her very identity.

In an afterword, Egan mentions that she wrote the book between 1994 and 2001. So what seems like remembrance and reflection is actually prescience and prediction. It's quite an achievement.

Summary of Look at Me: A Novel

United States Books

• Books > Subjects > Literature & Fiction
• Literary
• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Psychological Thrillers