He'd been given an assignment to write about teen beauty pageants [...], which he'd accepted because he enjoyed blood sports as much as the next person.

We're doing it wrong, absolutely wrong! Miss Universe should be about Space Exploration, Miss World about Science and Miss Earth about Going Green!

I told Kristy I would only do pageants as long as it wasn't a beauty pageant, which is focused entirely on looks.

And when she started becoming a “young lady,” and no one was allowed to look at her because she thought she was fat. And how she really wasn’t fat. And how she was actually very pretty. And how different her face looked when she realized boys thought she was pretty. And how different her face looked the first time she really liked a boy who was not on a poster on her wall. And how her face looked when she realized she was in love with that boy. I wondered how her face would look when she came out from behind those doors.

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

It's okay to look different, Lilith. Beauty is only a matter of opinion. If you believe you are beautiful, then that's all that matters. These are really tough years you're approaching now. Your decisions now as a teenager can change your entire life. Just make sure you talk to me or someone if you're ever feeling like life is too much to handle. And never let anyone convince you that you're not worthy, only to take advantage of you.