Every Crooked Pot by Renee Rosen is a astonishingly deep and thought-provoking debut novel. While Every Crooked Pot is partly autobiographical, Rosen is adamant that many aspects of Nina’s life are purely fictional. While the characters are partially based on her own friends and family members, Rosen’s imagination creates a story that is all her own. Every Crooked Pot is not just a story about Nina, but about her entire family, their complex relationships, and all the ways that love is shown.

Nina is a girl from Akron, Ohio, born with a birthmark over her eye. For many years, Nina is sure that her birthmark hinders her in every dimension of her life. It’s because of her birthmark that she is not pretty and that boys are not interested in her. All her life, she uses her birthmark as a shield, hiding behind it and using it as an excuse for anything she doesn’t want to do. Every day before school, Nina applies heavy makeup to her eye and combs her hair down over half of her face, all to conceal her birthmark. She undergoes many treatments at a doctor’s office all the way in Chicago, and even considers having surgery done, all in the hopes of correcting her eye. While some people complain about being too ordinary, Nina would give anything in the world for her eye to look normal. It is her greatest hope that she can hide her bad eye from the world. Maybe if somebody doesn’t notice her eye, they will be able to see her as a person, and not just “Big Eye, Little Eye” as the boys at school used to call her.

Rosen’s story begins when Nina is just a little girl, and follows her life past her high school graduation. Each important event in her life is so well documented, everything written from Nina’s unique perspective, and all of her feelings pouring out in a jumble that makes perfect sense. Because Rosen has hemangioma herself, I just get the sense that Nina’s feelings, thoughts, and fears are so real, she almost jumps off the page. In the end, Nina realizes that just like a bad yearbook photograph, nobody noticed her eye as much as she did, and she can be beautiful and lovable regardless. Every Crooked Pot is just a fantastic tale of discovering oneself and growing up to be the most you can be.

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