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What defines beauty?

Does it differ from “pretty” or is it just another degree based on the look of ones’ skin or depth of the eyes? An enigmatic smile or a joyful grin? Is beauty slim or curvy, curly or straight, aloof or engaging? No matter how you define it, you know what it is, so read “Everybody Else is Perfect” by Gabrielle Korn and learn why you can see it clearer today.

Flawless. Exquisite. Elegant. That’s what you normally see in fashion ads and layouts: models who are impeccably gorgeous, and mostly white. Rarely, or at least until recently, none of them looked much like Gabrielle Korn.

Growing up, Korn was fascinated by fashion, make-up, and style – and women, which she thought was true with every girl.

Once she understood that it wasn’t, she tried to like boys but something was missing. She was in college before she could allow herself to utter a word that described her sexuality.

Out, family-supported, and with degree in-hand, Korn began a career that first included jobs in public relations, archives, and at a sex-toy store. A “famous gay historian” had encouraged her to write, so she cut her teeth with non-paid magazine gigs and freelancing assignments at several different places, including Refinery29 and Nylon.

Back then, says Korn, thin, white, flawless cisgender women were overwhelmingly represented in beauty and fashion, to the detriment of WOC and LGBT models, and so she pushed for more diversity. After becoming Nylon’s youngest editor-in-chief (a job she landed the day the print edition folded), she made sure that diversity and inclusion were a main ingredient in the online magazine.

And yet, for Korn, it’ll never be enough.

“The fact that we live in a world where I can scream from the rooftops about how gay I am doesn’t mean the work is over,” she says. “It means it can finally begin in earnest.”

“Everybody Else is Perfect” is a little like a ping pong ball in a vacuum cleaner: sometimes, it catches a rest and sometimes, it bounces frantically.

Author and Refinery29 beauty-and-fashion director Gabrielle Korn begins with a moment of deserved pride: becoming an editor-in-chief of a national e-zine at an astoundingly young age. She switches subjects quickly, then, writing about her childhood, young adulthood, and her career, and that’s where she stays for about half the book, focusing on a carom of job-taking before sliding into TMI about salary and money.

About mid-story, Korn then turns to her personal life once again. It’s here where readers will be riveted by Korn’s battles with eating disorders, sexual harassment, and relationship issues that weave together with her thoughts on the beauty industry as a whole, and how it can do better for women of all races, appearances, and sexualities.

Overall, that leaves a wonderful message and meaning inside “Everybody Else is Perfect,” but readers who demand linear tales may struggle with it, since its bounce is pronounced. If you can overlook that, though, you’ll find this book to be pretty OK.

The Bookworm is Terri Schlichenmeyer. Terri has been reading since she was 3 years old and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a farm with two dogs, one patient man, and 17,000 books.