A review by libraryoflanelle
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

‘The first thing they teach me at the store is how to be my best self. It requires constant self-surveillance to steadily improve. My coworkers relate it to pruning a bonsai. Painful but necessary for refinement. What starts as an enthusiasm for improvement becomes an all-consuming infatuation. Caution becomes paranoia and, eventually, fear. Is there anything more comforting in life than knowing what to fear? At Holistik, they teach me what I need to be afraid of to become beautiful.’

In Natural Beauty, we follow an unnamed Chinese American narrator as she learns firsthand about the privilege, toxicity, and horrors of the wellness industry from within its walls. As readers, we join her on a journey from her childhood as a piano prodigy, through the tragedy of her parents' accident, and into a seemingly unrelated job offer in adulthood. A job that initially seems too good to be true quickly leads her into the grip of the health and wellness industry in ways she could never have predicted.

This debut novel is an outstanding critique of the growing consumerism and cultural appropriation that pervades the ‘wellness’ industry. It delivers incredibly powerful and wide-ranging social commentary, tackling the toxicity of Western beauty standards rooted in white supremacy, surveillance capitalism, and so-called ‘health-motivated’ self-surveillance.

The decision to leave the narrator unnamed, only for her to later be forced to adopt a workplace name for easier assimilation, further underscores the novel’s powerful commentary on the erasure of the immigrant experience and the role capitalism plays in perpetuating it. Throughout the story, the so-called health and wellness ‘treatments’ push her closer to the Eurocentric ideal of beauty, deepening the critique of this toxic system.

I particularly appreciated how Ling Ling Huang also weaves in themes of queer longing and confusion, emotions that become increasingly entangled with the overarching chaos of the wellness industry and the demands of assimilation.

The narrative is filled with visceral body horror and references to the narrator’s lack of bodily autonomy within the context of toxic consumerism. Be sure to check content warnings before jumping in, as alongside many other triggers, the novel includes depictions of sexual abuse, both within and outside the workplace. Though I missed it initially, I have been made aware that towards the end of the book there is also some ambiguity around possible trafficking and CSA.

This is an incredibly impressive debut. I cannot wait to get my hands on Ling Ling Huang’s next novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and Canelo for the e-ARC. All opinions are my own.
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