If you like any of the following:

- Black Mirror
- books about cults
- "weird girl" books that feel like horror "lite"
- commentary on the beauty industry, race, and being a woman
- queer books
- books that feel like a fever dream

then you need to pick up NATURAL BEAUTY.

This book follows a woman who once was destined to be a brilliant concert pianist but gave up her dream after the death of her parents. She is offered a sales job at a wellness brand called Holistik. After joining, she receives (and, in fact, is required to use) unlimited beauty treatments so she can sell them to the customers. As the time goes by, she discovers secrets that Holistik is trying to hide.

This debut is nothing but a feat that I will be recommending for a very long time. In less than 300 pages, Huang manages to create a set of three dimensional characters that make you grow emotionally attached to each and every one (for better or worse). She wove in hints that things were "off" at Holistik from the start, and it gripped me from beginning to end. This is a book where once you think it starts getting weird, that's just the shallow end. Because I read so much, I see a lot of repeated tropes or twists, but this book really surprised me again and again. A LOT happens in this book, and I want to reiterate again how impressed I am that all of it was able to be fit into a book under 300 pages without feeling rushed or underdeveloped.

I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy!

Wow! What a crazy book. After struggling for money working as a dishwasher, a young woman is offered a job at a Holistik, a fancy spa that caters to the rich with its special formulas for health and beauty. Miraculously her body starts changing and she is turning into a clone of all of the other beautiful staff members...but of course things are not what they seem as she soon finds out.

Really cool premise--gets a bit far-fetched toward the end but it is a fast compelling read that kept me turning the pages!

Amazing.

The cover, the premise, the execution, all of it, just everything, was great. I did not want to put this title down. I can see why Constance Wu has picked up this title.

I also applaud the author for writing a novel that doesn't assume the reader is an idiot. Thank you.

A fabulously horrifying read that was not at all what I was expecting. This will pair very well for fan's of Mona Awad's "Rouge" as well!

Oof, this book! A surprising horror story that didn't move or scare me as much as I hoped, NATURAL BEAUTY is another takedown of the beauty industry and wellness culture. The writing is visceral and disturbing, but my complaint is that often time Is didn't understand what was happening. I also felt like the novel wasn't as groundbreaking as I was hoping it would be. I feel like we've done this horror take on the wellness industry before, and I just wanted a little more from this debut.

Girls with Sharp Sticks meets The Island of Dr. Moreau. Futuristic YA sci-fi meets horror. It’s fantastic and creepy and wonderful. The dialogue could be better in parts, but the story was captivating and intense.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang is a gripping and fast-paced novel that delves into the darker side of the beauty industry. The book takes a closer look at the high stakes and ruthless competition that exists within the industry, exploring themes of belonging, self-worth, and the price of success. The plot is full of twists and turns, and the author's ability to build tension and suspense keeps readers on the edge of their seats throughout. The book's creepy atmosphere adds to the overall sense of unease, making it a thrilling and immersive read. Overall, I would give Natural Beauty a solid four-star rating for its engaging plot, well-crafted characters, and thought-provoking themes.

really unique book, loved the exploration of consumerism, vanity and (ba dum tzzz) beauty. definitely had some twists i didn't expect. big black mirror dystopian kinda vibes so def recommend if that's your vibe!

thanks net galley for the ARC, sorry for the belated review <3

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang will get under your skin. On the surface, it's about a young Chinese American woman and prodigiously gifted pianist whose musical career comes to an end after her parents are involved in a terrible accident. She finds herself working menial jobs to afford a barely habitable apartment when she's hired at a world-renowned beauty company where the rich and famous flock for their uniquely effective procedures. But as her new job begins to take over her life with its invasive technology, strict regimens, and supplements that make her more conventionally attractive, she (and we) are propelled forward in the story with a troubling feeling that there is something deeply insidious hidden beneath the glamour.

Huang writes so beautifully about music and how we engage with it, and she also poses some unsettling questions about the ways we're complicit in the obsession of beauty and youth and the often damaging industries that obsession has spawned. But what I personally connected with beyond that were the details unique to the experience of growing up as a second generation immigrant in the US, raised by parents whose formative years were spent in the shadow of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I really enjoyed this book, and I can't wait to see what Ling Ling Huang writes next.

Friends....this was wild. I'm not sure I noticed that this title was categorized primarily as horror and this went a million different directions than I was expecting - in a good way! This really is speculative fiction meets commentary on social beauty and living standards meets horror. I was creeped out for the second half of the book just due to the uncomfortable and weird and hazy experiences our main character was experiencing. I've never read anything like this and I feel as if I don't have the vocabulary to explain it enough to do this book justice. I think if you enjoy books/authors like "The Dangers of Smoking in Bed" by Mariana Enríquez, or anything by Carmen Maria Machado though specifically "Her Body and Other Parities" then you have a high chance of enjoying this book. It was masterful for how comfortable you became with the situations and how Ling Ling Huang was able to give you a new sense of normal as you were reading only to expose the deep seedy underworking's of Holistik, where the main character starts to work. I'm speechless. This is not a title I can recommend to everyone but also know the audience and people who might like the themes of this book.

Our obliquely named protagonist’s life has been shaped by growing up poor in New Jersey, the daughter of two pianists who barely escaped China’s cultural revolution with their lives and fled for the relative safety of the United States as soon as they could. Unfamiliar with the English language, they eventually found work as piano teachers, but did their best to dissuade their daughter from taking up the instrument as well. It didn’t work, for more reasons than one:

QUOTE
Ma would shake her head shyly when Ba played the songs that had been popular when he and Ma were growing up. Songs that depicted the country people often told me to return to, but that I had never seen. Ma always sang along softly and I would try to follow, but my tongue snarled on the difficult syllables. My parents never looked as happy and as sad as when they were singing the songs from their youth. I often wondered in these moments what it cost them to never show fragility. Only determination and resilience in the face of their new country.
END QUOTE

Drawn both to the instrument and to the meaning it clearly has in her parents’ lives, our protagonist develops a unique style that soon has her qualifying for a generous scholarship to the Conservatory. She discovers quickly, however, that being young and talented has its drawbacks. She makes few friends, and suffers guilt over being unable to keep back more money for her impoverished parents. Things come to a head after a performance that is meant to be a triumph for her turns into a night of tragedy.

Fast forward several years, and she’s working in a greasy fry shop in the city while living in the prohibitively expensive and awful basement of acquaintances. When Saje Bernnson steps into her workplace one day and offers her a job, it’s as if her fairy godmother has finally arrived.

Saje is the owner of Holistik, a super premium beauty and wellness company whose bleeding edge technology has enraptured not only its high-end clientele, but also the imaginations and aspirations of millions worldwide. Working as a salesgirl at their flagship boutique opens up a whole new world to our protagonist, who is given all the products and supplements she needs to fit in with the image of unattainable beauty the brand wishes to project. It can seem frivolous and vain, but as she gets closer to Helen, a relative of one of Holistik’s founders and perhaps her first real friend, she allows herself to be vulnerable enough to explain why she thinks her work is more than just surface-level:

QUOTE
“A lot of the clients are very rich, that’s true [b]ut many of them are young women. They don’t necessarily have much money, but they spend what they can spare on bettering themselves. Maybe what we’re doing is manipulative, but maybe it’s important, too. I can’t see where the difference begins or ends. Beauty has always been one of the only ways women have been able to access power, and I can’t fault any of them for wanting more of it.”

Truthfully, I relate to the young women more than I want to admit and feel a bit defensive about Holistik, the first place that has afforded me real and social currency.
END QUOTE

Unfortunately, things start taking a turn for the weird and deadly, as our protagonist finds herself enmeshed in a living nightmare. Microaggressions she can handle, especially if she’s being paid good money to handle customers who don’t even realize when they’re being extremely rude. But when she realizes that the lifestyle and products she’s embracing are changing her into someone she can barely recognize, she has to ask herself hard questions about the value of her own identity and what costs she’s willing to pay for not only survival but for the power of appearances.

This is a smart, savage book about the horrors of the modern beauty and wellness industry, and how capitalism can twist anything to look like a good idea. Written by a musician with immigrant parents, the novel’s visceral depiction of growing up poor and musical feels absolutely lived in, as does the examination of what our protagonist needs to do to survive living in the big city. I did feel like I wanted more out of the book’s climax, but I was definitely impressed with Ling Ling Huang’s narrative choices in the aftermath, which hold up a brutally honest mirror to how image works in our society. Natural Beauty is a terrific metaphor for how selfishness and greed drive criminal conspiracies by preying on the fears of the financially and psychologically insecure, while also sensitively exploring what it means to be part of a minority group trying to fit in with the mainstream. It’s not for the faint of heart – the bit with the papaya seeds freaked me out – but it’s a compelling, darkly satirical novel of crime and horror that often feels disturbingly close to reality.

Wherever we go—whether online or off—we’re bombarded by images of beauty ideals. Women especially are expected to spend a fortune to get the right skin, the right hair, the right lashes, the right shape. And Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang takes a look at how far people will go to look just right.

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery.

This body horror about beauty, capitalism, and cannibalism is such a fun romp, I applaud Constance Wu for securing the rights and turning it into a film spectacle, because the evocative settings and atmospheric scenes really ask for it. Ling Ling Huang's debut won me over from the start by refraining from telling me the obvious in a self-important tone (the wellness industry is feeding on people's insecurities by creating desirability and helps to sustain the status quo by keeping women in check via fear), she just assumes that her readers have more than five brain cells and extrapolates from our goop-y self-care hell to an alternative world in which an a-moral Elon Musk type tech investor dude packages his experimental science in a wellness cult and feeds it to the wealthy few. Hilarity ensues.

Our Chinese-American protagonist (of whom we never learn her real name, just that it means Lotus in Chinese and that her assumed name is Anna) is the daughter of two poor Chinese pianists who were incarcerated in a labor camp during the Cultural Revolution and then fled to the US - as the Cultural Revolution lasted until Mao's death in 1976 and we learn that our young and uber-talented narrator dropped out of the Conservatory after her parents got severely injured in a car accident, this means that the story mostly likely takes place ... in the past! Anyway, so in order to pay the bills for her parents' care facility, our desperate narrator takes a job at Holistik, which is part of a larger beauty enterprise run by ruthless Victor (the Elon Musk dude). As the story progresses, Anna gets to the bottom of what Holistik's treatments really mean, and how they are procured.

The novel is a real page turner, and the three-dimensional main character is great in her realness and messiness. Sure, the book discusses our obsession with beauty, the immigrant experience, capitalism and human cruelty, but without over-explaining these aspects or essayistic inserts, no, it's all there in the plot and woven into the characters, which helps to keep the speed up and hold the readers' interest. I was intrigued by the ruminations on aesthetics in music (the author is a renowned violinist) and physical aesthetics, because usually, one is considered high culture and worthwhile, while the other is perceived as superficial and cruel - but isn't there a deeper, more complex connection? (Plus, I'm all here for the explanation why Anna maintains that Schönberg is much more interesting than Mozart, and I agree.)

Also, let me point out that this novel, without apparent reason, features a dog named Goose. Who names their dog Goose?! Of course, Jesse Ball, and I count this as a nod to the great American surrealist badass, especially as Ling Ling Huang tends to blend horror and surrealism, and I'm here for it.

While there are some predictable aspects to the text, it's still great stuff, and I can't wait for the film version.

A ferocious, visionary debut about the dark side of beauty industry, Natural Beauty is a hallucinatory, wild trip; clearly inspired by real life company like Goop, whose practice in commercializing feminine well-being, and over-indulging in pseudo science (jade eggs for vaginas, anyone?) has been put into scrutiny. Ling Ling Huang also tackles numerous additional themes throughout its narrative, ranging from beauty standard, race, and immigrant generations; while insightful and well intended, some materials feel shoehorned-in, ending up dampening the dramatic tension (the fate for a couple critical characters were anticlimactic when they should've been emotional), or leaving me with distracting, unresolved questions (particularly in the last few chapters).

The Neon Demon, a 2016 film from Nicolas Winding Refn. immediately comes to mind while reading Natural Beauty, both explore the inner working of a glamorous profession (modeling vs. wellness), through a lens that's extremely stylish, sexual and fantastical. Even with some of its debut flaws, I would still highly recommend checking this out—it's definitely a subject matter not often seen explored in such manner prior.

Natural Beauty tells the story of a concert pianist who is forced to quit her promising career to care for her parents after they get into a terrible accident. To pay the bills, she begins to work at Holistik, a beauty and wellness company in New York. The book explores themes of body horror and cult mentality while also being a queer novel. The sinister and creepy atmosphere of the story builds up to some major horrific reveals that will keep readers on edge. This is a disturbing and unsettling look into the darker aspects of beauty culture.

I kept lingering over the passages in this book, when I was not gagging over the body horror, or being weirded out by the weird sex. I discovered quite late (when I was about to finish it) that it’s classified as horror, because then I would probably have avoided it; thank goodness I missed that, though, because it’s been a very cool read.

The basic plot: a man is obsessed with beauty, and has the money and connections to make beauty happen around him–only in women, though, which is a red flag, innit. The protagonist is a gifted piano player, an actual prodigy who is granted a scholarship, as a child, to study at a prestigious music school. We meet her later, when she is ruining her hands washing dishes in blistering water at a restaurant, where she is recruited by a mysterious woman to work at a company that sells–it must be said, ostensibly–beauty products.

Even though that’s the plot, I can assure you this book is like nothing you expect. It’s apparently set in the near-future, with genetic modification/gene therapy, but also a lot of the things that are used in the beauty industry already (making me wonder if the novel is an indictment of it, as well as the other things it is). It is a super weird book, in some places a kind of extended meditation (in a good way), in others the story of poverty among Chinese immigrants, and othering (in the US, especially), and also parental love and sacrifice, with a child coming to understand just how much her parents gave her.

As you can tell, it’s an impossible book to describe. Even with the horror elements, I love how mind-bending and fantastical it was, and it was such a good story. It ends on a good note, or at least I felt good at the end, which is excellent. So, if you’re looking for weird fiction with a speculative horror element, I recommend this highly.

Oh, and there are some really funny moments too, especially in the earlier parts of the book.

Thank you very much to Dutton and to NetGalley for access to this ARC.

A Sinister side to the Beauty Culture

A family tragedy forces a talented young pianist to leave the music world. The serious injuries suffered by her parents mean she needs money for treatment. Holistik, a high-end beauty company, offers not only the chance to make a lot of money, but also a chance to belong and find out who she is.

At first all goes well. Helen, the niece of the owner, becomes close to her. As the friendship deepens, she is drawn further into the world of products to shape your body and increase your attractiveness. At first all seems well, she is experiencing belonging and thinks she is beginning to know who she is. However, the atmosphere darkens.

The novel is compelling starting as the story of a young girl finding herself and gradually veering into another dimension. I thought the author treated the underlying cultural ideas well. The book looks at race, body shaming, and the dictatorial nature of beauty standards. However, I found the transition to the sinister underpinnings of Holistik more frightening that I was prepared for.

I received this book from Dutton for this review.

Body horror galore! What begins as a scathing commentary on “natural”, luxury beauty products and brands quickly diverges and (a bit uncontrollably) spirals into a woman lost among a global conspiracy. “Natural Beauty” is definitely a page-turner & had me itching to finish it by the end of the night, but I found it hard to connect with the characters and the story as a whole as we went further down the rabbit hole with the protagonist.

Thought-provoking, darkly reflective, and at times grotesque - Otessa Moshfegh & Ling Ma lovers alike would likely love to get lost in Ling Ling Huang’s world. 3.5/5 stars !

WOWOOWOW what a bonkers book. A wild look at beauty, aging, and the lengths we’ll go to achieve the standards society tells us we must live up to. 💉💉💉This gave me total Black Mirror vibes, and I think it’s best to go in not know much more than the synopsis… I couldn’t put this one down! Not for the faint of heart - I def felt queasy at times. An amazing debut.

the real horror story is the shallow beauty culture we engaged in along the way. this was an interesting fun story perfect for anyone who thinks beauty culture is evil and goop is disturbing and gwyneth paltrow is probably a supervillain. it was full of fun gross out body horror and weirdness, and super creative and interesting. there were times that both the writing and characters felt very much like a debut, but this was so promising!