Faceless 12+

About this book

This emotionally gripping novel about a girl who gets a face transplant is wonder for a YA audience.

When Maisie gets into a terrible accident, her face is partially destroyed. She’s lucky enough to get a face transplant—but how do you live your life when you can’t even recognize yourself anymore?

She was a runner, a girlfriend, a good student... a normal girl. Now all that has changed. As Maisie discovers how much her looks did—and didn’t— shape her relationship to the world, she has to redefine her own identity, and figure out what "lucky" really means.

From Alyssa Sheinmel, the acclaimed author of Second Star, this is a lyrical and gripping novel that will challenge readers to think about how we create and define ourselves.

Reviews

Praise for Faceless:

A New York Public Library Best Books for Teens (2015)
Nominated for YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults (2016)

"Faceless is gorgeous and wrenching, full of gigantic questions and even more gigantic answers about love, identity and appearance. It is a vivid, compelling, beautiful, immediate novel, and Alyssa Sheinmel's writing is so true, her characters so real, that they live on long after the last page is turned." -- Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author

"[Sheinmel's] depiction of a disfigured adolescent girl, already searching for herself and now suddenly forced to accept this new enormity, is compelling... absorbing." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Fascinating. Teens will identify with [Maisie's] struggle to accept that her old life is gone forever. The anger and grief that she feels is palpable and vividly expressed. Fans of R. J. Palacio's Wonder will also enjoy this book and relate to its similar theme about how physical appearance does not define who you reallyare." -- Voice of Youth Advocates

"A fascinating human portrait of a unique medical procedure, this work paints a complex picture of a young life impacted by a mammoth change." -- School Library Journal

"Sheinmel's prose is accessible to a wide range of readers who, for whatever reason, find themselves struggling with differences. A touching reminder that real change is rarely skin deep." -- Booklist