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Natural Beauty
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
Sly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost. Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parentsalso talented musicianswho fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City. Holistik is known for its remarkable products and proceduresfrom remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silkand her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and gives her a long-awaited sense of belonging. She becomes transfixed by Helen, the niece of Holistiks charismatic owner, and the two strike up a friendship that hazily veers into more. All the while, our narrator is plied with products that slim her thighs, smooth her skin, and lighten her hair. But beneath these creams and tinctures lies something sinister. A piercing, darkly funny debut, Natural Beauty explores questions of consumerism, self-worth, race, and identityand leaves readers with a shocking and unsettling truth.
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ItsAnotherJen
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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Pickpick

Very interesting and different sort of book than what I normally choose. That's what I like. Mixing things up a little. Body horror and the obsession with beauty. Very similar underlying themes to the movie that came out recently with Demi Moore 'The Substance' -yet very very different vibes. Fascinating, sad, and SO hard to put down. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

62 likes1 stack add
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Amor4Libros
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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I‘m rating this book 4⭐️ because it kept me reading when I would‘ve probably quit at 30%. This was probably the weirdest book I‘ve read in my life and now I can‘t wait to read her next one! (Luckily, I have an ARC)

55 likes1 stack add
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Amor4Libros
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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This book is so out of my comfort zone, but I can‘t put it down! At 60% and it just gets more weird and intense 😅

44 likes1 stack add
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BookMaven9
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️a horrifying read exploring the dark sides of wellness and beauty industry, especially when you have many billionaires out there doing whatever the fuck they want. Body horror, gore, graphic and sad! Commentary on race, beauty standards, immigration, misogyny and capitalism rolled into one compelling speculative fiction. A MUST READ!

16 likes1 stack add
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Emilymdxn
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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I‘ve been really enjoying the trend recently in books dealing with the horror of the beauty industry and how it preys on women in different ways. I loved the extra layers added to this story by the really deep and touchingly detailed story of the Chinese-American piano prodigy and her relationship with her parents and American-beauty status.

#skeletoncrew #hauntedshelf

Amor4Libros I received an ARC of the author‘s new book yesterday. I‘ve never read this one, bit it sounds interesting! 2mo
ChaoticMissAdventures I have been loving this genre too, and this one has been one of the really good ones. I thought it was so well done.
1mo
49 likes2 comments
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ImperfectCJ
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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This one feels similar to Mona Awad's Rouge but with less focus on grief and more on how privilege and racism inform beauty standards and how wealth can take a reasonable idea to an unreasonable extreme. I enjoyed the novel, but the story feels a little young, like it's lacking a layer of meaning that life experience might give it. Or maybe that was part of the point.

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ICantImReading
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I‘m here for fiction that explores the darkness of the beauty and wellness industry. “Natural Beauty” additionally delves into cultural identity. The most moving parts of the story for me were with the protagonist and her immigrant parents. The true horror is found in contemplating that these storylines aren‘t implausible… how far are people really willing to go for beauty and power? Who sets the standards? Who pays the price? 🎧

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Kappadeemom
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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Just started this and so far it‘s weird and compelling ;)

31 likes1 stack add
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Addison_Reads
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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#Scarathlon #SpookyGhostClub @Clwojick

This book mixes horror with speculative fiction while presenting thoughtful social commentary about the beauty industry and the lengths people go to in order to be deemed beautiful by society.

The second half of this book goes a bit off the rails, but I was more than happy to hang on tight and enjoy the wild ride.

batsy Yes! Thought it was strange and memorable! 13mo
Clwojick Another one for my TBR. 😂 13mo
35 likes2 stack adds2 comments
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BookLineNSinker
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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This was a shocking story that blended themes of coming of age, mystery, and horror. There were quite a few underlying messages in this book about being driven to perfection and the tool it take on us as young women. It looks at the beauty industry from an interesting perspective. It was fun but not my favorite. Horror rarely is my chosen genre, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it and was also shocked by a lot of the narrative. ⭐⭐⭐

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LynnMPK
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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I read five books in September and enjoyed them all!

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batsy
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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"At least she was beautiful while it lasted. She was really very ordinary before..." This, in an essence, sums up this strange, beautiful, body-horror novel of the wellness & skincare industry. Things get gross, graphic, & very brutal, but it's all for that transient spell of beauty. How is beauty so soul-affirming when pursued through creative means (the arts) but so damaging when it's about manipulating insecurities via potions & procedures?

batsy The author is a violinist & brings her experience & knowledge of the world of classical music to the book, but she also has a musical facility with words & the prose is lush & descriptive. There is an element of both horror & science fiction, a little speculative what-the-fuckery, that makes the whole thing unnerving. The fictional "wellness" company feels entirely too real, actually. I don't think we're too far off what's imagined here. 1y
youneverarrived Great review! I‘m intrigued. 1y
BarbaraBB I need to stack now! 1y
See All 8 Comments
batsy @youneverarrived Thanks! It was a memorable read for sure @BarbaraBB 1y
sarahbarnes Oh wow, adding this to my list! Great review. 1y
batsy @sarahbarnes It's different from the usual & I thought her writing was lovely 🙂 1y
BookLineNSinker I'm intrigued! About to start this one and I'm hoping it's less monster horror and more psychological horror, if that makes any sense lol. 14mo
Rissreads This sounds so intriguing! Stacked! 11mo
78 likes7 stack adds8 comments
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DaniJ
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
Bailedbailed

I tried to read this. I really did. It‘s like a fever dream mixed with MidSommar-like situational disassociations and some sexual violence. Felt like a bad trip. Bailed hard.

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guidosophia
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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This book was SO interesting and SO good. It was such a good mix of psychological horror, whimsy, and real life implications. It also talked a lot about heritage and culture and assimilation which connects to the summer class I‘m taking which is pretty cool. Also i love anything that attracts suspicion to the wealthy

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ChaoticMissAdventures
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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Ohhh this was great! It reminds me a bit of Our Wives Under The Sea, just that speculative fiction that seems normal but the more you read the weirder things get and you want to stop the characters but also cannot look away. These are some of my favorite books and I think this one will be with me for a long while.
So many?? About beauty and how far will people go, also how complacent are "you" questions I find fascinating.

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she.hearts.horror
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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Haunting. Beautiful. Horrifying.

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Hooked_on_books
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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Mehso-so

The first half of this book is a great scathing critique of the “wellness” industry and I really enjoyed it. But the second half becomes a dystopia wherein dream and reality were hard for me to parse. I love a dystopia, but it felt like too radical a shift and didn‘t work for me.

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TorieStorieS
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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This riveting read builds with mounting horror as the main character starts a job in an exclusive beauty shop that sells supplements, creams, potions & cosmetics- along with treatments that seem to have spectacular results. But it‘s soon clear that things aren‘t quite as natural as they are purported to be… Body-horror, plenty of fodder to discuss beauty in today‘s standards as well as artistic expression and growing up feeling like an outsider.

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LeafingThroughLife
Natural Beauty: A Novel | Ling Ling Huang
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Wow, this is bizarre. This is the literary horror story of a piano prodigy who falls on hard times and ends up working for Holistik, a high end store for organic beauty products and treatments, only to discover the dark underbelly of a corporation focused on a singular “objective” standard of beauty and pursuing it at all costs. The writing has beautiful moments of profundity balanced with the grotesque. A #netgalley and my March #doublespin

TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!! 2y
24 likes1 stack add1 comment