Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang is an important read for anyone who dares to challenge the status quo regarding beauty and wellness standards and how it’s been used to commodify achieving “beauty” and “health” while contributing to overconsumption, troubling beauty and wellness trends, and cultural erasure in favor of the Euro-centric ideal.
What is Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang About?
Huang introduces you to an anonymous young woman who’s struggling financially to care for her parents following a tragic accident that led her to abandon her dream of becoming a pianist. While working at a restaurant as a dishwasher a beautiful woman named Saje poaches her for a position at her clean beauty and wellness store Holistik with the promise of more money and financial security.
While there the narrator becomes enthralled with the beauty and wellness products and procedures and before she knows it she finds her identity, and beliefs about beauty being challenged as the sinister truth about Holistik and its owner begins to rise to the surface.
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
Genre:
Horror, Literary, Social, Body, Queer
Publication Date:
April 4, 2023
Author Background:
Ling Ling Huang is an accomplished violinist who has performed with a plethora of esteemed orchestras and symphonies. She began learning the violin at age four and transitioned to serious study at age fifteen. From there, her talent grew as she received awards and commendations for her talent and artistry, which led to her continued study and opportunities to perform with various orchestras and symphonies. Regarding her literary works, Huang’s debut novel, Natural Beauty, was released in 2023 and was her way of exploring the idea of the unhealthy pursuit of beauty through questionable health and wellness tactics.
Themes:
The commodification of beauty, the erasure of identity, the obsession with perfection, performance and authenticity, feminism and the female body, art, talent and sacrifice, capitalism and the illusion of wellness.
Content/Trigger Warnings
Body horror, medical and scientific manipulation, psychological distress, eating disorders and disordered eating, death and violence, loss and grief
Natural Beauty Book Review
Craft & Style
At its core Natural Beauty is a literary horror about identity. You continually encounter the narrator struggle to find her footing in the world as a second generation immigrant trying to retain and connect with her culture while also facing the temptation of Western society and Euro-centric beauty and wellness standards.
This novel is brilliantly written with sharp commentary and blunt critique regarding the beauty and wellness industry. Huang’s ability to highlight her points turning beauty standards into body horror is superb showing you the horrifying reality that many of us will go to in the name of beauty.
Huang’s prose is rife with salient points and critique designed to start thoughtful conversation and reflections. The story’s structure with the unnamed narrator is a beautiful symbol of how the narrator’s relationship with her identity as you’re forced to watch her morph and change sometimes physically but primarily emotionally and psychologically.
You’re also struck by the narrator’s innocence as she relays the absurdity of what she witnesses and encounters at Holistik and how she finds herself time and again excusing how problematic it all is.
The plot and pacing felt steady with suitable character development. The narrator wasn’t purely an innocent victim but also thirsty and eager to shed her identity and become more like the women at Holistik and those she befriended.
Emotional Impact
Having worked in the beauty and wellness industry for over ten years I felt Huang’s wellness industry critique and exploration into capitalism and the beauty industry was spot on. I was even impressed with how she detailed the reality of many retail beauty associates and industry professionals experience in the work field.
The competition, the body dysmorphia, the push to sell beauty and perfection to other women using questionable sales and marketing tactics, and how terribly underpaid you are often unable to afford the exorbitant products and procedures you sell.
While her depiction of the various procedures and products was indeed satirical the reality is the highlight how consumed we are with seeking outlandish procedures and products with the purest “cleanest” ingredients. How in the end all of this is really about classism and in some ways racism as only the White wealthy elites are the ones these products and procedures are designed and promoted to aid.
Lastly, I felt her critique regarding how Western societies white wash the beauty and wellness industry borrowing customs, practices and trends from Asian cultures and transforming them to prioritize Whiteness and classist ideals alienating the culture they borrowed these practices from.
Representation
This novel highlights the Asian American experience transitioning to Western American culture. And, while the book is structured to obfuscate the race and ethnicity of the key players in the novel it all works to the deeper themes of the novel.
Additionally, there is queer representation as the narrator becomes attracted too and falls for her close friend Helen.
Huang also gives voice to workers in the beauty and wellness industry showcasing the problematic practices, unfair pay, and toxic environment that exists within many establishments.
Notable Strengths
This novel is a standout because of its honest critique, apt commentary and satirical take on the beauty and wellness industry. Furthermore, Huang handles the thematic elements beautiful utilizing literary devices such as symbolism, metaphors, allegory, imagery, personification, juxtaposition and irony.
Potential Challenges
While Huang’s commentary is brilliant and strikes a chord it can be heavy handed as though she’s spoon feeding you the point. Additionally, the narration style may cause the reader to struggle to engage and empathize with the character.
While satire and hyperbole are used often to expose the absurdity of the beauty and wellness industry and how easily we all are at accepting them. It can lead to some reader finding it to be overdramatized and melodramatic.
Deeper Reflection
Natural Beauty inspires you to question what you’re being sold when it comes to beauty and wellness. Is it just a harmless product? Or, is it something deeper, more sinister built on cultural erasure and misogyny to push a narrative that you’re not enough and in order to be successful and worthy you have to adhere to the current beauty standards?
As you read this novel take time to reflect on the themes of this novel and ponder whether beauty and wellness is friend or foe.
Who Do I Recommend It To?
This novel is ideal for readers that enjoy exploring themes of identity, bodily autonomy, and how problematic Western beauty standards are. A great introduction to horror for Lit-Fiction fans that want a character driven social horror.
Join the Conversation
What’s your take on the beauty and wellness industry? How has our obsession with perfection and contrived beauty standards led to overconsumption, body dysmorphia, and poor self-esteem across all generations and eras?
