I had agreed to wear this skirt because it was the summer of 1990: the summer I agreed to do things I didn’t want to do and laughed at jokes that weren’t funny. I had just turned sixteen, and what I wanted more than anything else in life was to be beautiful. I didn’t care about being smart, successful, or good. In fact, I beleived that beauty was the prerequisite for achieving any of these other qualities (Rapp 128).
I think what Rapp is able to do in her memoir that is remarkably interesting is how although her memoir is a story filled with events that seem unrelatable and completely unique on one level, she is able to create a sense of empathy and interconnectedness with the reader. Asides from being disabled, Rapp is very much still a female of the world. Where she struggles with identity issues due to her leg and from not having a socially “acceptable” body, some of her identity issues also stem from worries any other women have, such as finding worth in being able to be loved, married, and desired. Dilemmas with religion- with prayers not being answered- although specific to her in that she wished to be whole and made anew, are still similar to the reality of others- of hoping so hard for something, yet never attaining it. Rapp presents us with a story unimaginable to most, and although it is an experience that I cannot fully empathize with since I have not lived it, to a degree I can. Is it this ability to empathize and sympathize with her struggle that reels the reader in so close it makes one feel united.