Change Your Looks, Change Your Life

January 1, 2003
Copeland is assistant professor of clinical surgery at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and attending surgeon in plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Mount Sinai Hospital-as well as a "diplomat" of the National Board of Plastic Surgery; Postman is a senior features editor at Elle, who has also written for Glamour and Mademoiselle. The diction they cook up for this advice book meshes medical and fashion expertise in a manner that is somewhat unnerving; at one point, their first person text notes that "Helping people to imagine how their looks-and, by extension, their lives-can improve is the most challenging and rewarding" aspect of what Copeland does for a living. "Fixes" and procedures include endoscopic forehead lifts, "collagen or fat injections in the face to strategically plump it up," neck lipectomy (whereby "gobble neck" is "sucked away") and many others, carefully explained and illustrated by before and after pictures. The authors raise the potential "red flags" that should prevent one from undergoing surgery (including depression and pregnancy), but they also define various "light-bulb moments"-a dopey catch-phrase to refer to the things that bring people to seek surgery or other interventions. The book takes readers from making the cosmetic surgery decision through finding a doctor, to "Skin Savers and Quick Fixes" that don't involves surgery, and separate chapters on the face, breasts (the word "perky" is used repeatedly), body contouring, and healing that do. Copeland is an enthusiastic advocate of surgical procedures, and tries to back that enthusiasm with anecdotal and scientific evidence regarding surgery's effects, for some, on self-esteem and health. The pack is thick with similar books, but the Sinai name carries a lot of clout (at least in New York) as does that of Elle, and the book's upbeat, go-go encouragement is infectious. Some readers, however, may find themselves admiring the "before" pictures more than the "afters," and wondering about those light-bulb moments.