Molly Burke's new memoir "Unseen" chronicles the challenges of being a blind woman in a sighted world.
"Unseen" is Molly Burke's new memoir. She wanted the cover to be accessible to those with low vision and other vision impairments.
Molly Burke with her guide dog Elton John. Burke's new memoir is "Unseen."

Molly Burke wants you to judge her new book by its cover.

Run your fingers over the raised dots. Notice the bold gold type, the strip of light across the close up of her face.

“I’m blind, but I’m also a very visual person, a very detailed person” says Burke, 31, an entrepreneur, YouTuber and disability advocate. “I wanted the cover to tell my story.”

“Unseen: How I Lost My Vision But Found My Voice,” (out now from Abrams) is part memoir, part education and part advocacy for more compassion and empathy in a world where Burke finds little for people with disabilities.

The cover represents so much for Burke. The book title and her name are in braille. The gold type appears as a metallic flash to Burke, who still has some light perception.

“If you are looking for some type of book that is triumph over tragedy,” keep looking, Burke says. “I spent so much time expecting that if I pushed through the hard times, I'd get to that sunshine. I've realized that isn't how life goes for most of us. Good and bad exist harmoniously and that’s OK. I wanted to capture that.”

At 4, she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare degenerative eye disease that leads to eventual blindness. By 14, she had lost most of her vision – and with it, her friends.

Burke later found a community online to talk about makeup and fashion. She loved listening to creators talk about makeup pigments and techniques.

But she recognized that these artists did their makeup while looking in a mirror and she did her makeup by touch. She began making her own tutorials – showing contouring and highlighting.

Her videos evolved from makeup and fashion to stories about travel and wellness. She hopes her videos help change the discrimination that many people with disabilities experience.

“Everything isn’t about being blind. But I can’t separate my blindness from me, so every video has my disability in it, but it doesn’t have to be the focus,” she says.

Her online audience grew to more than 5 million across platforms. She’s been named a Forbes 30 under 30 creator for social media in 2024 and appeared on "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" in 2022. Noah said Burke isn't just funny, she is engaging and "dispels so many of the myths around how we see blind people and how we think about people with disabilities. (She goes) into (her) world not just living (her) life, but basically going, how do I educate idiots?”

Fans of her videos will find that same warmth and humor in her book, which feels as if you are sitting down and having a conversation with her.

The book chronicles the bullying she experienced as a child, as well as growing up in a world that felt like it wasn’t built to include her. She hopes the book provides representation that didn’t exist for her.

“My community has been starving for representation for so long. Not just in the media, but in school, at the mall or at summer camps,” she says. “Finding that representation online finally is such a relief for so many people.”

She saw this in action during book promotion last month when she met three middle-school aged girls. Each is going blind at the age Burke says was the most difficult for her.

“They told me how they are learning to do their makeup from me, navigate fashion from me. They want a guide dog because I have one and this means so much,” she says. “They are learning that there is nothing wrong with them. It’s a society issue, not an issue about them.”

She's excited about her next project, a children's book written from the perspective of her guide dog, Elton John.

As an advocate, she tells stories, but she also consults with companies on inclusivity. For her, it was important to include that in the book.

Burke worked with the book publisher to ensure that “Unseen” was accessible to those with visual impairments. The cover, so important to her, pushed back the publishing date when it first came back without legible braille and needed to be printed again. The font (Atkinson Hyperlegible) used for the book is deemed easier to read for those with low vision or dyslexia. The book also will be printed in braille.

And for the cover: “I wanted to make sure I hired disabled people. My makeup artist is a quadriplegic. The person who did my hair is legally blind and my photographer is an amputee,” she says. “If I am sitting in boardrooms consulting on how to design products that are more inclusive, then I better make a product that is more inclusive.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Molly Burke is so much more than a beauty influencer who is blind

Reporting by Laura Trujillo, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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