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Beauty’s Beast: Toxic-Wellness Fiction
The culture of wellness — whether it be mental, physical or purely aesthetic — has been around for centuries, but has insinuated itself into our everyday lives via vociferous online communities and ubiquitous brands in recent years. Advertisements for the best butt-kicking workouts, the latest and greatest skincare regimen, overpriced greens that you need to work into your morning routine, self-guided meditation journals and ASMR podcasts are just a few of the many pieces of the giant wellness- culture pie. While everything here is good in moderation, what happens when things turn toxic? With serums, tinctures and tonics aplenty, which brands can you trust, and how much do you need to buy? While we’re still working these questions out for ourselves, we gathered a list of our favorite toxic-wellness fiction to keep you glowing from the inside.
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A novel that’ll have you looking at your favorite tub of moisturizer sideways, youthjuice is the story of a woman’s search for meaning, beauty and fulfillment at a luxury skincare company. Sinister and seductive, this is a searing beauty industry satire.
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California sunshine contrasts with a gothic mansion in this wildly subversive novel from the author of cult-classic Bunny. Rouge exposes the darkness beneath the glossy surface, and is sure to appeal to fans of Melissa Broder, Ottessa Moshfegh and Carmen Maria Machado.
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A musician’s life takes a sharp, devastating turn that leads her to a sales representative job at a luxury beauty and wellness store. Enter the world of creams, lotions, potions and more in Natural Beauty, a story that examines the dark underbelly of what it means to be beautiful and the steep price of aesthetics.
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Pristine on the surface with a slow-rot seeping within, Self Care is a novel about the farce of perfectionism online and in person. Richual is a feminist-first company with a sexual predator on its board;, a woman-led community built on toxicity and violence. You’ll never look at #BeautyTok pages the same again.
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Rather than examining the consequences of a toxic wellness brand, The Glow takes readers behind the scenes of creating one. A story about a woman’s desperate grasp at stability through creating a wellness empire from the ground up asks questions about the ethics of consumerism and the dangers of capitalism.
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A story from the perspective of self-help devotees, Wellness introduces us to a not-so-happily-married couple. Nathan Hill’s (The Nix) characters learn that the grass isn’t always greener next door in this tale of our all-consuming cultural obsessions and brutal anxieties.
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Find beauty without a filter in Aesthetica, a story of a thirty-something former influencer ridding herself of the beauty rituals and procedures she relied on as a teenager. A self-discovery journey that leads to dark truths and closet skeletons trying to break free, this is a sharp and brutal tale.