Beauty Disrupted, a memoir by Carre Otis, details her decadent and dangerous existence as an 80’s supermodel and wife of Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke. With brutal honesty and raw courage, Carre describes the many poor choices that led her down a nearly tragic path.
The book opens with multiple flashbacks to Carre’s childhood growing up in the 1980’s in San Francisco. While Carre highlights the happy moments of her childhood, she does not shy away from describing the traumas she experienced as an adolescent. This chain of traumas including her father’s alcoholism, a sexual assault, the death of her high school boyfriend, and her parents’ divorce. These traumas set the scene for Carre eventually running away from home.
Once Carre ran away from home to the streets of San Francisco, she became homeless. Due to her beauty she was able to find jobs as a model and then an older boyfriend who supported her briefly. However, Carre soon finds she has to escape this abusive boyfriend and make it as a model in order to survive.
With her indomitable drive to survive, she eventually becomes a supermodel and stars in the movie Wild Orchid opposite her eventual husband, Mickey Rourke. Yet, all that glitters is not gold, as after marrying Rourke, Carre must endure further years of trauma from drug usage and abuse. This memoir ends on a high note however as Carre becomes a convert to Buddhism and devotes herself to discipline, forgiveness and healing.
BOTTOM LINE: This book is a terrific read for audiences who appreciate an empathetic female survival story that does not play victim. The author does not blame anyone for her journey and instead attempts to empathize with all involved, including her younger self.