A Gothic fever dream of perception and deception and rejection and an all-together creepy peek inside obsessive beauty wrapped around the thirst for maternal approval. I had a 15-year career in prestige cosmetics and this book is fluent in my former language. The cleansing rituals the acids the toning the replenishing the brightening the tightening oh my goodness does Awad get the intricacies of what people do to erase the appearance of age. The threat, the sheer threat of looking old! There's a blending of the unattainable Tom Cruise into the ever-present "Seth" that's seamlessly written. And there are an endless array of superbly delightful passages of malapropisms to get lost in! Plus a merman. Please don't take off your ruby red slippers, Mirabelle, and force me to return to either of our realities.

Merged review:

A Gothic fever dream of perception and deception and rejection and an all-together creepy peek inside obsessive beauty wrapped around the thirst for maternal approval. I had a 15-year career in prestige cosmetics and this book is fluent in my former language. The cleansing rituals the acids the toning the replenishing the brightening the tightening oh my goodness does Awad get the intricacies of what people do to erase the appearance of age. The threat, the sheer threat of looking old! There's a blending of the unattainable Tom Cruise into the ever-present "Seth" that's seamlessly written. And there are an endless array of superbly delightful passages of malapropisms to get lost in! Plus a merman. Please don't take off your ruby red slippers, Mirabelle, and force me to return to either of our realities.