Tag: dystopia

Killer Wellness

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Over the last couple months, I’ve noticed an increase in fiction that mixes body horror and standards of beauty. These books tend to fall in the thriller or horror genres by mimicking current social anxieties. By mirroring what is happening in society today, authors are writing about the fears that keep us up at night. I had been introduced to this genre of books when I read, and then watched, Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty. The darker side of the wellness and beauty industry has always fascinated me (my love of cults definitely feeds into this vein), so this genre of killer wellness fiction/body horror was a natural fit. While researching for this blog, I noticed that while the dark sides of the wellness industry are present in these books, there are also related themes stretching across many of them (science fiction biotechnology, influencer culture, celebrity gurus) all told from a mostly female point-of-view.

All of the below titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions have been provided by the publishers.

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Rouge by Mona Awad

For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.  – Simon & Schuster

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The Glow by Jessie Gaynor

Jane Dorner has two modes: PR Jane, twenty-five, chummy, and eager to sell you a feminist vibrator or a self-care/bereavement subscription box; and Actual Jane, twenty-nine, drifting through mediocre workdays and lackluster dates while paralyzed by her crushing mountain of overdue medical bills. When her job performance is called into question, Jane’s last-ditch effort to preserve her livelihood and pay off her debt is to land a white whale of a client.

Enter the impossibly gorgeous Cass—whom Jane discovers scrolling through Instagram—and her unassuming husband, Tom—proprietors of a “wellness retreat” based out of a ramshackle country house that may or may not be giving off cult vibes. Suddenly Jane realizes she might have found the one ladder she can climb—if she can convince them that transforming Cass herself into a high-end wellness brand is the key to all three of their futures. Magnetic yet mysterious, Cass is primed to be an influencer: She speaks in a mix of inspirational quotes and Zen koans, eats only zucchini (the most spiritually nourishing vegetable), and has baby-perfect skin. Despite Tom’s reticence about selling out, Jane sets out to mold Cass into the kind of guru who can offer inner peace and make your skin glow—all at a hefty price, of course. As Jane reckons with her own long-dormant ambitions, she wonders: Can a person really “do good” for others while profiting off them? And what parts of our selves do we lose when we trade power, influence, and beauty? – Penguin Random House

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Chrysalis by Anna Metcalfe

It was hard to be in the present, she said, but if her body were heavier and more in control, then her thoughts would clear and her mind would recover its power.

What happens when a woman dares to take up space? An enigmatic young woman drastically transforms her body, working to become bigger, stronger, and stiller in the wake of a trauma. We see her through the eyes of three people, each differently mesmerized by her, as they reckon with the consequences of her bizarre metamorphosis. Each of them leaves us with a puzzle piece of who she was before she became someone else.

Elliot, a recluse who notices her at the gym, witnesses her physical evolution and becomes her first acolyte. Bella, her mother, worries about the intense effect her daughter’s new way of life is beginning to have on others, and she reflects on their relationship, a close cocoon from which her daughter has broken free. Susie, her ex-colleague and best friend, offers her sanctuary and support as she makes the transition to self-created online phenomenon, posting viral meditation videos that encourage her followers to join her in achieving self-sufficiency by isolating themselves from everyone else in their lives.

Uncanny, alluring, and intimate, Chrysalis raises vital questions about selfhood and solitude. This daring novel asks if it is possible for a woman to have agency over her body while remaining part of society, and then offers its own explosive answer. – Penguin Random House

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Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom

At 19, she was an Instagram celebrity. Now, at 35, she works behind the cosmetic counter at the “black and white store,” peddling anti-aging products to women seeking physical and spiritual transformation. She too is seeking rebirth. She’s about to undergo the high-risk, elective surgery Aesthetica™, a procedure that will reverse all her past plastic surgery procedures, returning her, she hopes, to a truer self. Provided she survives the knife.

But on the eve of the surgery, her traumatic past resurfaces when she is asked to participate in the public takedown of her former manager/boyfriend, who has rebranded himself as a paragon of “woke” masculinity in the post-#MeToo world. With the hours ticking down to her surgery, she must confront the ugly truth about her experiences on and off the Instagram grid.

Propulsive, dark, and moving, Aesthetica is a Veronica for the age of “Instagram face,” delivering a fresh, nuanced examination of feminism, #MeToo, and mother-daughter relationships, all while confronting our collective addiction to followers, filters, and faux realities. – Penguin Random House

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Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

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.– Penguin Random House

 

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Looking for something else to read? Try these other titles!

Everything is Fine by Mike Birchall

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Have you ever read anything from WEBTOON? WEBTOON is a website, home to thousands of diverse comics, manga, webcomics, and more.  Some years ago, I was introduced to this website and have been reading a couple comics steadily. One of my favorites in Everything is Fine by Mike Birchall. Imagine my joy when I discovered that Mike Birchall had made this comic into a print book: Everything is Fine: Volume One. I was able to check it out from the library and reread part of this webcomic again, but in print!

“I want you to know, Tom. Even through that mask… I saw it on your face. We’re all in the same boat here, but that doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it. Like you do.” – Mike Birchall, Everything is Fine: Volume One

Everything is Fine: Volume One is a horror dystopian graphic novel definitely not for the faint of heart (or for a younger audience). Sam and Maggie are perfectly normal. They live in a perfectly normal neighborhood, have a perfectly normal relationship, and have a perfectly normal dog named Winston. The houses all look the same; the people all look and sound the same. Everything is fine in their world.

Look at them for a bit longer and the facade starts to crack. Sam and Maggie have been struggling for a while. Winston is dead. Their idyllic suburban life is monitored by outside surveillance cameras and red eyes pop to life in their heads sometimes. They and their neighbors question every decision, yet also are disconnected from the world. Emotions are pushed to the side, leading to serious repression that puts Maggie on the brink of lashing out. Something very sinister lurks beneath the surface of every interaction. One wrong move could disrupt the delicate balance they live in.

This is a strangely manipulative and creepy book that lives to make you uncomfortable. The pacing may seem measured, but that’s because the themes are heavy, the plot is tense, and the story is a slow burn. Readers are left wondering what is actually happening as an eerie weirdness permeates. Despite the title, everything is not fine. The people are too nice, the jokes aren’t that funny despite their hard laughter, and an undercurrent of ‘not-rightness’ runs through each conversation and interaction. This book was intriguing, ends on a cliff hanger, and left me wanting more.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

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Have you ever wanted to be a librarian? What about a rebel librarian? Sarah Gailey’s Upright Women Wanted is a twisted dystopic pulp western where librarians are the only way to get approved information, but things are never as they seem.

Before we get to the librarians, we need to start with Esther. Esther is a stowaway. After seeing her best friend executed at the hands of her father for being in possession of resistance propaganda, Esther has run away and hidden herself in the book wagon the librarians are taking across country. In this future American Southwest full of bandits and fascists, librarians trek to small towns to deliver materials approved by the government. Desperate to escape the marriage that her dad has arranged(to a man who was previously engaged to her now dead best friend), the librarians are Esther’s quickest way to escape and to be her truest self. Maybe she will start to heal her broken heart. Her best friend wasn’t just her best friend. Esther was in love with her.

Discovered by the librarians, Esther is introduced to a life she never thought possible. The more she learns about the librarians, the more she realizes that they are not as straight-laced as they appear. Instead they are queer librarian spies working with a secret network to spread resistance materials and supplies to those in need. The librarians are trying to do the right thing, but putting up a front of normalcy is the only way that they can survive.

After the Flood by Kassandra Montag

- Stephanie Leave a comment

I picked up this book to read because the cover was relaxing and the lines swirling over it looked like map lines. It turns out that I was right! Those are map lines after all and they turn out to be a key element in this book.

After the Flood by Kassandra Montag is set over a hundred years into a dystopian future where rising flood waters have crept up and overtaken the continents. This slow rise of water has obliterated and destroyed the mountaintops and known landscape and has, as a result, left in its place deep wide expanses of open water.

Myra is angry. Why is she angry? Her husband Jacob abandoned her while she was pregnant with their daughter Pearl. To top it off, he took their oldest daughter Row with him when he took off. Myra and Pearl are travelling from island to island on Bird, the boat that Myra’s grandfather made in the attic of their house before he died. Surviving by fishing and trading at the islands they visit, Myra is constantly on the lookout for any information about Row and Jacob.

Their life may be tranquil and at an even keel, but Myra knows that this peace can be interrupted at a moment’s notice. A bad wave, an interaction with violent people and breeding ships, or a fish shortage could all spell disaster for the pair. While stopped at an island to trade, Myra learns that Row may in fact still be alive. This chance encounter leads her to pack up Pearl, search for help, and start the dangerous journey to The Valley. Far up north, the trek to The Valley will be full of breeding ships and savage people looking to steal anything they can and willing to take over any unsuspecting ships. Add in the fact that The Valley might be going through an epidemic and Myra needs to get there as soon as she can to save Row.

On their way to The Valley, Myra and Pearl are hit with obstruction after obstruction with death and strangers littering their path. They eventually end up on board the boat, Sedna. This boat couldn’t be more different than Bird: Sedna has a fully able crew and seemingly all the supplies they could ever need (food, ammo, weapons, building/boat materials). Myra slowly discovers that in order to make it to Row and rescue her, she will have to betray and deceive everyone around her. Is Myra willing to sacrifice Pearl in order to save Row? Is Row even there? Could this all be for nothing? Myra has to decide what she’s willing to do to find out the truth.

This book is also available in the following format:

Vox by Christina Dalcher

- Stephanie Leave a comment

This book was all over reading lists before it even came out. When Vox was released, the hype grew even bigger. What I discovered when reading reviews of this book was that people either really loved or didn’t like it. I firmly fall in the ‘love it’ category and I hope you all like it as well.

Vox by Christina Dalcher runs in a similar vein of The Handmaid’s Tale as another example of a specific segment of the population being silenced/put into service by a different group. While reading this book, I noticed that I was growing increasingly agitated at the restrictions placed on women.

Jean McLellan is a cognitive linguist. Happily married with four children, Jean lives a pleasant life. Her husband Patrick is the science advisor to the President and seems to have an inside track to what’s happening. With the rise of the ‘Pure’ religious movement, Jean quickly realizes her basic freedoms are starting to be taken away. When the ‘Pure’ movement succeeds in infiltrating the government, Jean knows she’s in trouble.  She saw the signs, but failed to respond appropriately. Women representation in government is decreasing, the ‘pure’ religion is gaining traction, and female freedoms are being lost at an increasing rate. Jean did nothing. Her friends and family warned her and pleaded with her to do something, but Jean continuously believed that America would never go very far. She was wrong.

One day, all women were fitted with a bracelet snapped around their wrist that worked as a word counter. This permanent bracelet limited them to 100 words per day. 100! ALL DAY! That’s it. Don’t even try to go over 100 because each over will result in severe consequences. The ‘pure’ movement controls all. Religion has a higher say than science. As a result, Jean, as a linguist specialist, is very worried about what would happen to women the longer they are silenced and limited to 100 words.

Having somewhat adjusted to this horrible new normal, Jean is startled when she is approached by the President’s men saying her professional services are required. Meeting with the powers that be, Jean is told that the President’s brother has suffered a severe brain injury that impacts his ability to use language. Jean, plus some of her previous work colleagues, are needed to research a way to help him. Obviously Jean leverages her unique skill set to negotiate a deal in her favor. Jean is now in a position to help the female population, but has to do so sneakily. Complications ensue (obviously). Once Jean is reunited with her previous colleagues, they must race against time to solve the problem presented. Jean’s past plays a large role in her decision to behave the way she does with the overall message in the book being: use your voice before they take it away.

This book is also available in the following formats: