Pretty Is As Pretty Does - Tapa blanda

"Clement has a funny yet frank presentation of sexuality. For at least half of the novel we find ourselves laughing page after page. The humor doesn't stop at that point, but the raw impact of chaos starts striking us.... Like the intricately aerobatic qualities of silent screen comedy this book is driven by an imaginative and high-spirited use of familiar types.... Clement goes for farce, sweeps us up in all [its] expected intensities...."
-- The Denver Post

"Pretty Is As Pretty Does is addictive. At turns lilting and jabbing, often hilarious, this beauty queen narrative describes the stranglehold of family, how it pits obligation against desire. Alison Clement doesn't pull any punches in this compellingly complex novel that proves to be tender, passionate and unruly."
-- Julianna Baggott, author of Girl Talk and The Miss America Family

"Alison Clement has created a memorable fictional world in which sensuality and food are inexorably bound together in the life of brash, winsome Lucy Fooshee, for whom prettiness poses an almost Zen-like conundrum. Lucy's struggle to unravel the mess of her destiny and find a way out of the hauntingly prosaic town of Palmyra makes for a riveting journey into the heart of the Midwest."
-- Abby Bardi, author of The Book of Fred

"Clement's wildly entertaining first novel presents a complex character who quenches the thirst for straightforwardness despite her many shortcomings and ignites the pages with lusty passages spurned from a volcano of pent up desire."
-- Booklist

Lucy Fooshee has just married Bob Bybee, the second-richest farmer in the county if you don't count the Winklejohns -- and who'd want a name like Winklejohn, anyway? Add her enviable hubby to the local beauty queen titles she's won on account of her slim figure, full lips, and all-around good looks, and Lucy's the most envied young woman in Palmyra, Illinois. The most admired by men, too. Funny thing, though: now that she's married, no one even seems to notice anymore, and Lucy's feeling irritable. So when Billy Lee -- a stranger with no prospects -- comes to town and sees her in a whole new way, he upsets Lucy's applecart. Sure, she's got everything anyone in Palmyra could want, but maybe that's just not enough. With her striking humor and picture-perfect observations about life in a small town, Alison Clement tells the hilarious, lusty, and ultimately touching story of a fiercely independent woman trapped in the body of a small-town beauty queen.