You're Ugly, Too

The central focus of Lorrie Moore's You're Ugly, Too is her controversial character, Zoe. Zoe fills her life with criticism, irony, and sarcastic comments. Although this makes her interesting and unpredictable, it does little in the way of making her a sympathetic character. It should be easy to feel sorry for Zoe, she is a single woman with few friends to speak of and a job she is less than thrilled with. She is not satisfied with life, which should invoke some emotion within the reader. However, I found it difficult to feel anything for Zoe except exasperation. She hides behind a mask of wit and sarcasm, pretending that everyone she meets is just too unobservant and ordinary to garner her interest. In reality, her immaturity leads her to ruin most relationships in her life. Her relationship with her younger sister has reversed, her sister now taking care of her because, while Evan is moving on with life, maturing in her relationship and personality, Zoe remains forever her sarcastic and free-spirited self. Her social awkwardness and inappropriateness is brought to a climax when she pretend to push Earl off the roof. She did not even seem to realize how inappropriate that was as "she smiled at him, and wondered how she looked" (370). It makes the reader wonder if all the men in her life really were lacking in the ways she described, or if she is simply too immature to make a real relationship work.