Amazon lists this book for $15.95 but I got it for (*drum roll*)
50 cents!
It had the silliest name of a self help book I'd ever read. Of course, for that price I had to own it. I also bought a book of mad libs, two sudoku books and a crossword puzzle for the long trip to Idaho.
Since the crossword puzzles turned out to be impossible (Who is Alan Ladd anyway?) I started reading my bargain book. It turns out this book is a little gem.
Ilene Beckerman is a humorist who didn't start writing professionally until her sixties. This book is a series of letters (she never sent) to beauty icons and to her teenage granddaughter about her personal (and funny) struggle with beauty, after she is invited to her sixth grade class reunion. It's written in an anecdotal way so it takes about an hour to read the whole thing cover to cover. And it is funny.
It has great stuff it in, like this:
"My fourth-grade teacher, Miss Crystal, had eyebrows that met in the middle.
Miss Crystal never got married. That's what happens when your eyebrows meet in the middle.
Unless, of course you're Frida Kahlo."-- Ilene Beckerman, Makeovers at the Beauty Counter of Happiness.
I went back to the crossword puzzles later during a traffic jam in Boise. I didn't get very far. The pop culture references were all from 1964.
