"You're Ugly, Too" is a much more character-driven story than it is a plot-driven one. With a sparse plot, but layered with anecdotes and flashbacks that reveal the main character to be cynical and dismissive in her relationships with nearly everyone in her life, especially men, the story offers a glimpse into the thoughts and daily life of an unmarried Midwestern history professor who flies to Manhattan to spend Halloween weekend with her younger sister.

Although narrated in the third person, "You're Ugly, Too" is told from the point of view of Zoë Hendricks who, when the story opens, has been teaching atMidwest colleges for four years. Her first teaching stint was in New Geneva, Minnesota, or "Land of the Dying Shopping Mall" where "[e]veryone was so blond . . . that brunettes were often presumed to be from foreign countries." Her liberal arts students in Paris...