Our narrator is the youngest student at the Conservatory. She produces a sound from the piano no one else does, employing a special technique she learned from her parents-also stunningly talented musicians-who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future as a pianist and accepts a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City. Holistik is known for its remarkable products and outrageous procedures: remoras that suck cheap Botox from the body, eyelash extensions made of spider silk, emotional support ducklings bred to imprint on their owners. Every product is ethically sourced and made with nothing but the highest quality ingredients. Our narrator’s new job is a coveted one among New York’s beauty-obsessed, and it affords her entry into a new world of privilege. She becomes transfixed by Helen-a model, and the niece of Holistik’s charismatic owner-and the two strike up a close friendship that hazily veers into more. All the while, Holistik plies our narrator with products that slim her thighs, smooth her skin, lighten her hair, and change her eye color. But beneath these fancy creams and tinctures lies a terrible truth that threatens to consume her. After all, beauty is nothing without ugliness.
Natural Beauty has stayed with me for a few weeks. I wasn’t going to write about it here, because I didn’t find it significant or likeable enough. And here I am a month later, still browsing through the list and feeling… something, when I scroll past the name of this book.
I say « something » because I really don’t know what is going on here. Natural Beauty is such a short little horror novel, and yet it touches on so much. The body horror is engrossing (and also just gross), but it goes so much further than that − to the point that it feels like the least awful part of the book, in a sense.
I found the book very similar to The Centre in a way, with its horror take on cultural appropriation. Others talk about this with more sensitivity and knowledge than myself, including the author herself.
To me, the main topics were grief and body image. I could have chosen half a dozen more − pressure to perform, conformity, identity, being your parents’ caregiver, awful roommates, bisexuality − but these two stayed with me. The way grief makes you give up on what you love the most and pulls you down into this spiral. The way your body image makes you ignorant of what’s happening in your own mirror until it’s too late to understand that something else happened to your body. It’s good. It’s really good.