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Michael Without Apology is a novel by award-winning, best-selling American author, Catherine Ryan Hyde. Ever since a nasty firework accident when he was seven, Michael Woodbine has kept his scarred body covered. At nineteen, he’s an attractive young man with an interest in making films, and his first college film class is a revelation that has an unanticipated impact on his attitudes.

His teacher, Robert Dunning, has visible scarring which he doesn’t try to cover: “He tells people to look. He invites them to talk about it. He won’t be ashamed of it, and he won’t let anybody else be ashamed because of their reaction to it”.

The first assignment that Professor Dunning gives the class is a short film. Michael’s unusual idea, to film people talking about their body image problems, gets Dunning’s tick of approval, but he needs subjects to interview. The flier he puts on the college noticeboard is a little vague, with an unexpected result: people who call his number, interested in participating, aren’t scarred the way he is, but Dunning tells him “you can never go far wrong by following the direction in which the universe is pushing you.”

He learns a lot about life from his interview subjects, even though some of their problems seem less of a big deal; he decides he should listen to the other person’s reality, not mitigate it or minimize it or try to shape it in any way. “Our problems are our problems, and I think sometimes they get compared to other people’s problems in a way that makes us feel like we don’t have a right to feel the way we feel about them.”

Telling his own story: his parents giving up their eight-year-old son for adoption when they kept their older son, elicits from one subject, this insight “It must have made you feel like they thought you were damaged goods” and he sees that “it explains why I kept the scarring a secret. I guess I thought if people knew, they’d reject me”. She also offers “Sometimes people have scars. It’s not a deal-breaker for anyone who’s not shallow as hell. It just is.”

He makes his film, a powerful little piece, and what it has to say attracts the attention of others in the business. But including his own story, as it does, when it is more widely seen, it gets a reaction from those who knew him then, including his birth family. Can he confront this head on?

Again, his teacher has good advice: “almost without exception our regrets are made up of the things we didn’t do. Almost any mistake can be lived with, because you gave it a shot. But we regret the chances we let go by.”

As always, Ryan Hyde gives her characters wise words and insightful observations: “Whenever I hear anybody tell anybody else they’re too sensitive, all I hear is ‘I want to feel free to say offensive things to you and it really inconveniences me when you mind’” and “I don’t completely believe what I can’t prove, and I don’t completely rule out what I can’t disprove” merely two. Topical, thought-provoking and heart-warming: classic Catherine Ryan Hyde.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing.