Natural Beauty
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Carolyn Kang
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By:
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Ling Ling Huang
About this listen
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction
Longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
Sly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost.
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.
A piercing, darkly funny debut, Natural Beauty explores questions of consumerism, self-worth, race, and identity—and leaves readers with a shocking and unsettling truth.
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Critic reviews
A Good Morning America Buzz Pick
A New York Times Editors’ Choice
One of WIRED's Best Books of 2023
A SELF Well-Read Book Club Pick
One of the New York Post's "best new books to read"
One of Bustle's “36 Best New Books Of Spring & Summer 2023”
One of the New York Public Library's "Engrossing Thrillers To Put Into Your Beach Bag This Summer"
Featured in Book Riot’s “25 Best Horror Books of 2023”
One of Powell’s Books “Hot Book Summer” recommendations
One of Katie Couric Media’s “13 Books by AAPI Authors To Read This May and Beyond”
An April LibraryReads Pick
“Her talents…harmonize most seamlessly when she writes about music, managing the near-impossible feat of crafting descriptions of the compositions that are as airy and adroit as the melodies themselves. And she is at her best when she skewers the narcissistic, corrosive version of self-care that can be mistaken for empowerment…The novel is a meditation on vanity, the ways in which the pursuit of physical beauty can betray the other sources of beauty in one’s life, and how horror can lurk beneath the surface of even the most poreless skin.”–Jazmine Hughes, The New York Times Book Review
“Absorbing . . . Natural Beauty starts out frothy, offering an enticing dip into how tech could beautify and perfect our bodies and faces in the near future . . . It quickly veers into subversive horror, turning into a cautionary tale on societal themes we’re currently seeing IRL.”–Vogue
“The promise of self-improvement is darkly seductive. In Ling Ling Huang’s Natural Beauty […] a former pianist working at a biotech-funded wellness store initially thrills at her regimen’s effects (defined eyelids, opalescent skin). By the end, her dismissal of rigid aesthetics is what lingers: ‘That fine line between beauty and ugliness, ripeness and rot, is what keeps an audience listening with held breath.’”—Vanity Fair, “The Pursuit of Beauty Fuels a Dark Streak in Fiction”
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Clara Brodeur has spent her entire adult life pulling herself away from her famous mother, the renowned and controversial photographer Ruth Dunne, whose towering reputation rests on the unsettling nude portraits she took of her young daughter from the ages of three to 14. As Clara charts a path connecting her childhood with her adult life, Shapiro's novel weaves together past and present in images as stark and intense as the photographs that tore the Dunnes apart.
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It was okay
- By Lucy7 on 02-13-19
By: Dani Shapiro
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The Time Traveler's Wife
- By: Audrey Niffenegger
- Narrated by: Fred Berman, Phoebe Strole
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.
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One of my favorite books
- By Joey on 01-13-08
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The Red Address Book
- By: Sofia Lundberg, Alice Menzies - translator
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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The global fiction sensation - published in 32 countries around the world: Meet Doris, a 96-year-old woman living alone in her Stockholm apartment. She has few visitors, but her weekly Skype calls with Jenny - her American grandniece, and her only relative - give her great joy and remind her of her own youth. In writing down the stories of her colorful past - working as a maid in Sweden, modelling in Paris during the '30s, fleeing to Manhattan at the dawn of the Second World War - she may help Jenny, haunted by a difficult childhood, unlock the secrets of their family....
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narrator was overwrought
- By Janet L. Hamilton on 02-22-19
By: Sofia Lundberg, and others
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Private Relations
- By: Diane Chamberlain
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Welcome to the Chapel House, the old oceanfront mansion where a group of close friends share their hopes and dreams and where love is sometimes an unexpected guest. Heartfelt and deeply moving, Private Relations won the 1989 RITA Award for Best Single Title Contemporary Novel from the Romance Writers of America.
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What???
- By Kimberly K. Roberts on 06-12-18
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Thin Girls
- A Novel
- By: Diana Clarke
- Narrated by: Jayme Mattler
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Rose and Lily Winters are twins, as close as the bond implies; they feel each other’s emotions, taste what the other is feeling. Like most young women, they’ve struggled with their bodies and food since childhood, and high school finds them turning to food - or not - to battle the waves of insecurity and the yearning for popularity. But their connection can be as destructive as it is supportive, a yin to yang. When Rose stops eating, Lily starts - consuming everything Rose won’t or can’t.
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nothing special
- By Drine on 10-11-20
By: Diana Clarke
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In Session: Dr. Morgan Snow with Steve Berry's Cotton Malone, Lee Child's Jack Reacher & Barry Eisler's John Rain
- By: M. J. Rose
- Narrated by: Natalie Ross, Phil Gigante, Scott Brick, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As a therapist specializing in sexual issues, psychiatrist Dr. Morgan Snow isn't easily shocked, or shaken, as readers of the popular "Butterfield Institute" novels know. There are times, however, when the need for her services leads her out of the office... and into unfamiliar worlds. In these stories, the therapist matches her wits -and her training - against three men of mystery: Jack Reacher, John Rain, and Cotton Malone.
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Labor of Love--
- By Kathryn on 11-05-11
By: M. J. Rose
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Keeper of the Light
- Keeper Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Diane Chamberlain
- Narrated by: Arielle DeLisle
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Dr. Olivia Simon is on duty in the emergency room of North Carolina's Outer Banks Hospital when a gunshot victim is brought in. Midway through the desperate effort to save the young woman's life, Olivia realizes who she is - Annie O'Neill, the woman Olivia's husband, Paul, is in love with.
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I can't finish this...
- By Calmeridian Tink on 03-31-16
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The Unbreakables
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Barr
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A delicious, sharp novel about a woman who jets off to France after her perfect marriage collapses, putting the broken pieces of herself back together while rediscovering her own joie de vivre - a lust for life, art, and steamy sex.
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Could have been a good story
- By Leslie Francis on 12-24-20
By: Lisa Barr
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Conversations with Friends
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Frances is a cool-headed and darkly observant young woman vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. Her best friend and comrade-in-arms is the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi. At a local poetry performance one night, Frances and Bobbi catch the eye of Melissa, a well-known photographer, and as the girls are then gradually drawn into Melissa's world, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband, Nick.
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Interesting point of view; glad I listened!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-23-17
By: Sally Rooney
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Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
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Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
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The Vine of Desire
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Anju and Sudha formed an astounding, almost psychic connection during their childhood in India. When Anju invites Sudha, a single mother in Calcutta, to come live with her and her husband, Sunil, in California, Sudha foolishly accepts, knowing full well that Sunil has long desired her. As Sunil's attraction rises to the surface, the trio must struggle to make sense of the freedoms of America - and of the ties that bind them to India and to one another.
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Vine of desire
- By Mz Shantay on 03-27-21
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Eat the Document
- By: Dana Spiotta
- Narrated by: Rachael Warren
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the heyday of the 1970s underground, Bobby DeSoto and Mary Whittaker - passionate, idealistic, and in love - design a series of radical protests against the Vietnam War. When one action goes wrong, the course of their lives is forever changed. The two must erase their past, forge new identities, and never see each other again. Now it is the 1990s. Mary lives in the suburbs with her 15-year-old son, who spends hours immersed in the music of his mother's generation.
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Great ensemble piece!
- By Buyer009 on 08-08-17
By: Dana Spiotta
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Despite the Falling Snow
- By: Shamim Sarif
- Narrated by: Shamim Sarif
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Now a major motion picture. After an early career amongst the political elite of Cold War Russia, Alexander Ivanov has lived in America for 40 years and has managed to bury the tragic memories surrounding his charismatic late wife, Katya - or so he believes. For into his life come two women - one who will start to open up the heart he has protected for so long; another who is determined to uncover the truth about what really happened to Katya all those years ago.
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Beautiful snow fall
- By Mary findsplaces on 05-22-20
By: Shamim Sarif
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Gone Again
- A Thriller
- By: Minka Kent
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt, Gabra Zackman
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On her fortieth birthday, Celia Guest has reason to celebrate. She has a loving marriage, a beautiful Connecticut home, and treasured friends. Celia has everything she’s ever wanted. But among the cards and well-wishes, she discovers a disturbing note: You don’t deserve any of this. Who could be so cruel, so resentful, so…knowing? Then, in the early morning hours, Celia vanishes without a trace.
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Nothing really happens
- By A reader on 04-11-23
By: Minka Kent
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Recording is so rough
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Speechless
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Such a great premise, but missed the mark.
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A woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to the California high desert to escape a cloud of sorrow—for both her father in the ICU and a husband whose illness is worsening. What the motel provides, however, is not peace but a path discovered on a nearby hike. Out along the sun-scorched trail, the narrator encounters a towering cactus whose size and shape mean it should not exist in California. Yet the cactus is there, with a gash through its side that beckons like a familiar door.
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Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss.
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12/10
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In this close-up look at the ardent love affair between the author and her painting teacher, which began in the 1970s, when she was seventeen and he was forty-seven and married with two children, Ciment not only reflects on how their love ignited (who leaned in first for that kiss?) but interrogates her 1990s memoir on the subject, Half a Life. She asks herself if she told the whole truth when she wrote about their passion back then, and what truth looked like to her in the even longer-ago era of love-bead curtains when she fell in love.
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Excellent writing; overworked main question
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The Need
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When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. She’s been hearing things these days. Startling at loud noises. Imagining the worst-case scenario. It’s what mothers do, she knows. But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement. Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty.
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Horrible.
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Everything You Ever Wanted
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You stay in bed until the afternoon, scrolling through your social media feeds and wondering why everyone else seems to be achieving so much. Sometimes you don't get out of bed at all. Then you hear about Life on Nyx, a programme that allows 100 lucky winners the chance to escape it all, move to another planet and establish a new way of life. One with meaning and purpose. One without Instagram and online dating. There's one caveat: if you go, you can never come back. But you aren't worried about that. After all, what on Earth could there possibly be to miss?
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Nothing Happens
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What listeners say about Natural Beauty
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- ferretk4
- 12-07-23
Moving, gruesome, beautiful
I just listened to the other “Beauty industry as horror” 2023 book, Rouge, and was worried that this would be very similar, but oh boy I should not have worried - this is an astoundingly unique book, and (at least for me) much deeper and more moving. It’s about beauty, yes, but also music and illness and ambition and parents and race and culture… all presented with suspense and gore and compelling writing, and with a great narrator.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-15-23
An excellent horror novel
I wasn't expecting a scathing critique of the beauty and wellness industry in a horror novel, but it was a pleasant surprise. This book took some absolutely wild turns; I can honestly say I had no idea where it was going next. The only reader I would not recommend it to are those who dislike body horror. I thought it was great, but if you're not into that you're going to have a bad time.
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- Kellie Ashbrook
- 01-23-24
Loved the creepy/sci fi aspects!
There are parts that I had to push through (chapter 11), but I think the slow burn is intentional and Id say its worth it. The writing is really beautiful and imaginative at times and I loved all the creepy/horror/sci-fi esque twists and turns.
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- Metta Nikki Weburg
- 05-27-24
Pleasantly surprised!
Bought this cause it said it was a Beauty horror and sounded interesting. The story was amazing! Body horror but not too disgusting. Definitely recommend!
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- Amanda Stowers
- 05-31-23
Beautiful and Horrible
Exquisite juxtaposition of beauty and horror. A new Frankenstein for the near future. Very moving.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-15-24
The juxtaposition of beauty and and beauty
While, thought provoking and a mirrored image of our current beauty’s standards, the climax of the book fails to enthrall me. Relatable and a reminder of nurturing one’s own health, not for the standards of others but for the love of yourself and God.
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- Dawn
- 01-22-24
Beautiful, cultural and so weird, just loved it
Highly recommend! Such a thoughtful, interesting and beautifully sad listen. The narrator was perfect. I felt taken away to another place but yet the future portrayed is so familiar it makes this novel even even more devastating.
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- Naomi
- 05-12-24
Bittersweet
Soft sci-fi horror that makes you think, remember, and consider what you value most in yourself and others. Deeply relatable and emotional, but also really disgusting and weird—in a good way.
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- Laura
- 10-31-24
Absolutely wild
This story starts out as a well-meaning adventure of a super talented pianist who studies at a conservatory and then has to take care of her immigrant parents so she gets a job at a fancy wellness company that gets SUPER WEIRD. And the weird parts are CRAZY. I don’t know how to say anything else about it without spoiling it. The writing was tight, and the imagery was impeccable and vivid. I gobbled it up in one sitting. Great narration. Great story!
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- QueeneB21
- 05-31-23
Science Fiction vs Concert Pianist
Weird well told story of the quest for beauty and immortality. I enjoyed and recommend.
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