Whimsy: a novella, Paperback/Shannon McLeod

Years after an accident that kills her college roommate and leaves her disfigured, Whimsy is still struggling to live with a face that betrays the traumas of her past. Whimsy is a 7th grade teacher in Metro Detroit; her insecurities are compounded by her students, who never pass up a chance to humiliate her. However, when Whimsy meets Rikesh, a journalist who writes a human interest piece about her crash, she finally feels happiness is possible. Though he is emotionally unavailable, Whimsy is stuck on pursuing Rikesh, and they use one another to project what they lack. As she struggles with self-doubt in their courtship, at work, and in her friendships, she considers the ways her own perceptions of her physical appearance have shaped her reality.