In This Altered Body: A Survivor’s Story of Resilience and Love

Charlene Pell wears her scars like badges of honor—she has never hidden them.

Thirty years ago, on a sunny afternoon, Charlene was on a private flight to Cat Island, Bahamas, when the unthinkable happened: the plane, piloted by her fiancé, experienced a mechanical problem and crashed in a fiery inferno. When Charlene awoke, she discovered that 64 percent of her body had been burned, and her fiancé had died.

In This Altered Body is the compelling story of Charlene’s physical and emotional odyssey to reclaim her life and identity after surviving a tragedy that left her facially disfigured and grieving. As Charlene begins the long, painful process of recovery, she fears she will never be loved again, because her outward beauty has been destroyed and our society, obsessed with flawless skin and superficial beauty, stigmatizes disfigurement. But through dogged determination, Charlene overcomes difficult obstacles both physical and emotional—and learns from the experiences of other burn survivors to never write off her dreams and to be open to possibilities . . . including love. Brimming with insight from a life of perseverance, In This Altered Body is a piercing memoir about tragic loss and the resilience of the human spirit.