The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Cooper Jones, Chloé. Easy Beauty. Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2022.

Chloé Cooper Jones's Easy Beauty is a memoir written from the author's first person point of view. Tracing Chloé's experiences traveling from city to city, country to country, the memoir assumes a largely linear structure. Because Cooper Jones presents her experiences in the form of a first person narrative account, the following guide refers to her by her first name when referencing her life experiences. As is also true of the memoir, this summary employs both the past and present tenses.

One night, Chloé goes out for a drink with her classmate Jay at a bar in Brooklyn. The two are both students in the same PhD philosophy program, but have not previously spent time together outside of the university setting. Their friendly dynamic is quickly interrupted, however, when Jay's friend Colin joins them at the bar. Although Chloé tries to be receptive to Colin in spite of his brusque arrogance, when Colin starts to argue that Chloé's life is worthless because of her disability, she retreats into her neutral room. This is a space she has created in her mind. She enters the space when she feels physical or emotional pain.

Chloé was born with sacral agenesis. This means that she is missing her sacrum. She also has disproportionate feet, a curved spine, and misaligned hip joints (17). Her physical atypicalities make her disability immediately apparent to others. When she was born, the doctors told her parents a litany of things she would never be able to do, including walk and have children. Over the years, Chloé has become familiar with the inaccessibility of her world. However, she has also learned how to detach herself from her environment and her relationships. These habits are begotten of her fear and her self-protectiveness.

In the wake of the humiliating bar outing, Chloé leaves her home in Brooklyn, New York for Italy. Her husband Andrew has purchased her a ticket to a Beyoncé concert in Milan. Because Chloé has always wanted to see Bernini's sculptures, she reroutes her ticket and travels to Rome first. Seeing the sculptures complicates her understanding and perception of beauty. For years, she has regarded herself as ugly. However, while in Italy, she starts to realize that beauty is not only subjective, but more of an aesthetic experience than an observable fact.

Although Chloé was initially skeptical about seeing Beyoncé perform, the concert proves transformative. While watching the show, Chloé is particularly struck by how open and present the pop icon is. Witnessing this makes Chloé realize that she needs to change. She is unsure where to begin, but knows that if she tries she can accomplish it.

After returning from Italy, Chloé receives the opportunity to cover the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Throughout the first days of the experience, Chloé feels like an imposter. However, after she meets Peter Dinklage at an event one night, she starts to interrogate the ways in which she has been regarding herself and her circumstances. She does indeed feel alienated and alone. However, she has also come to see how she has played a role in her isolation, too.

Just two weeks after returning from Utah, Chloé travels to Cambodia under the guise of performing research for her dissertation. Contrary to her expectations, her experiences throughout the trip teach her more about herself than about the tourists she had planned to study and write about.

Some time after her trip to Cambodia, Chloé receives another journalistic opportunity. This time, she travels to Palm Springs to report on a tennis tournament for GQ. At first, Chloé feels outside of the experience. Over the course of the tournament, however, she realizes the joy and release of participating in a communal experience.

After finishing her sports reporting, Chloé and her family take a trip to Miami at the end of the summer. Chloé is particularly glad that her mother joins her, Andrew, and their son Wolfgang. Throughout their time in Miami, the mother and daughter share a wealth of challenging and transformative conversations. Chloé's mother particularly urges her to look outward more often and to open herself to wider, collective human experiences.

When Chloé finally returns to her life in Brooklyn with Andrew and Wolfgang, she feels different. Her time outside her hometown has granted her perspective on herself, her relationships, and her future.