Pretty Takes Practice

After her first book, 365 Nights, came out, Charla Muller found herself doing what most working mothers never expect to do: touring the country as an author. It was equal parts thrilling and intimidating. Then she watched herself on a screen in high definition, and the picture was not kind. Every flaw was magnified, a few readers made unflattering remarks, and the whole experience made her take a hard look at how little she had been exercising.

The shock stuck. Muller cried a little, partly over how much she felt she had let herself go and partly over the five-year-old bargain sweater she had worn on Oprah. Then she decided to do something about it. What followed was an odd, funny and sometimes touching journey that put her values to the test, along with her ideas about beauty, the way she saw herself, and her relationship with her mother.

Pretty Takes Practice is a warm, comic memoir told by a Southern woman who is willing to share stories she once swore she would keep to herself. Underneath the humor is a point many readers will recognize: looking and feeling good is something you work at, and the work says as much about who you are as about how you look.