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**Winner of the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction**
**Longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel**
**A GMA Buzz Pick, A New York Times Editors’ Choice, and A SELF Well-Read Book Club Pick**
Now in paperback, a sly, surprising, and razor-sharp debut novel that follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost.
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 parents—also talented musicians—who 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 procedures—from remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silk—and 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 Holistik’s 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 identity—and leaves readers with a shocking and unsettling truth.
Author: Ling Ling Huang
Paperback Published 11 June 2024 272 pages
“A meditation on vanity, the ways in which the pursuit of physical beauty can betray the other sources of beauty in one’s life, and how horror can lurk beneath the surface of even the most poreless skin.” –The New York Times Book Review
“Absorbing . . . a cautionary tale on societal themes we’re currently seeing IRL.” –Vogue