Something for the Christmas list; ‘Beautiful’ by Katie Piper.

I’ve always been a fast reader. I devour books, whipping through pages so quickly that people think I can’t possibly be taking it all in. The more I enjoy a book, the faster I go, until the words become an independent chatter in my head and I’m lost in the story. As an English teacher this is an important skill; I can get the gist of things quickly and I can speed-read my way through a text to teach the next day. The downside is that good books never last more than a day or so! As a child, my Dad once watched me zoom through The Diary of Adrian Mole in 3 hours and couldn’t believe I’d actually read it. He set up a quiz and watched me I disbelief as I answered every question correctly, sometimes quoting directly from the book.

So when I picked up Katie Piper’s ‘Beautiful,’ I knew it wasn’t going to take me long. I was hooked and spent the next 4 hours churning through the pages, only stopping occasionally to wipe the tears from my eyes and swallow the lump in my throat. We all know Katie Piper and we all know she has a harrowing story. Yet to read it first hand and empathise with her emotional journey is very different. She’d chosen her words carefully to explain exactly how she felt and didn’t shy away from the more personal details. It was a riveting although difficult read.

Katie’s attitude is one that I think people who are experiencing any difficulties in their lives should strive to adopt. Her mantra, ‘you’re a survivor, not a victim,’ is a potent one. Those who see themselves as victims of circumstance feel powerless to help themselves and in the case of emotionally and physically gruelling circumstances, you have to help yourself as much as possible. Taking some control and being a ‘survivor’ is often hard to achieve but very satisfying once done.

Katie’s Uncle says to her, ‘you haven’t just survived, you’re thriving too.’ It’s no good just existing day to day. As an individual you have the right to lead a full, flourishing life bursting with the things you enjoy and surrounded by people who love you. Much of this is to do with your own actions, being brave enough to try new things and take opportunities and not always worrying what others think of you.



If you have had an accident, particularly a burns accident, this is a very reassuring read. The medical team keep saying to Katie, ‘it won’t always be like this, or look like this’ and her recent press photos prove they were right - she excludes confidence and fabulousness. As someone in the early stages of recovery and skin changes, it’s positive for me to see the results of time and patience. Katie also found she disliked things like hairdryers, cooking, candles, hot drinks and so on. This is something I’ve found difficult (especially around Christmas time: chestnuts roasting on an open fire; mulled wine; fairy lights and all that!) but am pleased to know that it’s something burn survivors do, a process they go through. It doesn’t matter how you were burned, fear of being burned by something else, even if completely unlikely or illogical, is common.

Overall, I’d recommend Katie’s book to anyone, as a reminder of what’s important in life and how fragile our construct of our sense of self can be if it is based on a superficial form of beauty. Katie is beautiful, her friends and family are beautiful and her medical team are beautiful. There is a wide world of beauty out there and it doesn’t all look the same.

‘Burnt and fabulous, that was me.’



Life is like an hourglass......

Eventually everything hits the bottom, and all you have to do is wait it out until someone comes along and turn it around again.