Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

40 reviews

itsheyfay's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Medical trauma, Body horror, Grief, Racism, Animal cruelty, Death, Medical content, and Bullying

Moderate: Car accident, Death of parent, Ableism, Cannibalism, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Classism, Vomit, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Pregnancy

Minor: Child abuse, Abandonment, and Pedophilia

_serena_'s review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Every time I thought this book couldn’t get any crazier it proved me wrong!

I really liked the art and musical descriptions through this book. Music was such an integral part of our narrator’s life, it’s only right that it continues to follow her. As someone who also uses music as an escape and a passion, it was very relatable. 

This isn’t traditional horror - it’s very much body horror. Body modification, medical experimentation, unethical human trials. 

If you want something not too long, a little wacky, a little creepy and very intriguing I think you’ll enjoy this. I would check out the content warnings before diving in. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Car accident, Medical content, Racism, Sexual assault, Mental illness, and Bullying

rice_cooker's review

4.5

one of the scariest books i've read in my life 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Sexual harassment, Medical content, Gore, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Vomit

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Classism, Death, Racism, Blood, Body shaming, Death of parent, Grief, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Eating disorder, Sexism, Sexual assault, Murder, Violence, and Car accident

Minor: Body shaming, Pregnancy, Pedophilia, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Cannibalism, Emotional abuse, and Suicide

mybestfriendisabook's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

pretty quick entertaining read. helped thru reading slump. mostly read in slightly sleep deprived delusion states. enjoyed the weirdness and body horror. plot is like Rogue by Mona Awad and this one came thru. 

touches on beauty standards and the lengths we’ll go, chinese immigrant parents

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death of parent, Medical content, Torture, Violence, Rape, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Cannibalism

caroisreading's review

dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What a wild ride. And what a hell of a debut novel by Ling Ling Huang. I'm still processing the many layers that the author has sliced open, with all its grotesque detail, what it means to be a woman stripped of her own nature, power, choice, financial security, fertility, ethnicity, family and body. Essentially, the reality we live today, only digestible as a work of dystopian fiction. 

Our narrator is a Chinese-American daughter of immigrants, two pianists who escaped the Cultural Revolution. She's absorbed their passion for the instrument and art, and rises as a talented young prodigy, enduring bullying for being praised, different, and poor. After tragedy, she has to give up piano for odd jobs to survive, and finds herself working in retail at Holistik, a beauty shop that feels surreal with its elite clientele, innovative services and beautiful staff of women. As she literally drinks the Kool-aid, she mentally and physically becomes the same brand of beauty, at a huge cost. 

This is a disturbing story, a little too real in its descriptions of an unrelenting capitalist society, with beauty and youth reserved only for the 1%, and a dismissive eye toward the basic healthcare and wellness of the lower and middle class. It sarcastically mimics the marketing extremes of what it means to be "organic" and "zero waste" to the point of nauseating realism. It serves up, very simply, the erasure of ethnic beauty and backgrounds in favor of a homogenous Nordic-type everygirl. It shows us nature's brutality and retaliation when man tries to bend it to his will. It explores the relationship between art and pain, and the sacrifice of self for something to be considered beautiful.

This is a must-read, for a reality check on many of the rights we see ourselves being stripped of, and issues our society are grappling with today. Definitely check the content warnings.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Sexism, Vomit, Fatphobia, Blood, Body horror, Car accident, Chronic illness, Death, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Gore, Racism, Body shaming, Xenophobia, Animal death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Bullying, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Rape

caoimhemia's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Medical content, Body horror, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Cannibalism and Animal cruelty

emilywemily6's review

mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

In some ways, this book gave more than I expected, and in other ways, it didn’t quite fulfill what I was hoping for while I was reading. I really liked the conversations on the cosmetic industry, European standards of beauty, the privileges afforded to the privileged, etc. However, there is a lot jammed into this book, and by the end I felt a little unfulfilled in these discussions and plot points that could have gone farther than they did. Also, the main character’s lack of awareness/acceptance of the changes she went through was irksome. If I was suddenly 6 inches taller I would have been startled and run away from Holistik, for one thing, let alone all the other things that happened. She also felt so bad about her relationship with her parents but did nothing to truly fix it or come to terms with it. So I wasn’t a huge fan of the main character. I also felt like the book was over-sexualized. While this novel gave me a lot to think about, it won’t be quite a favorite.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Alcohol, Grief, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Bullying, Death, Cursing, Medical content, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Drug use, Gore, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Miscarriage, Infertility, Pregnancy, Cannibalism, Car accident, and Animal cruelty

aleesquer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Child abuse, Body horror, Body shaming, Cannibalism, Car accident, Drug use, Chronic illness, Death, Medical content, Death of parent, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Murder, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment

mudlizard's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

perfectly meh. I was somewhat interested in its surrealness and I am a fan of literary horror, but I feel like the explorations of beauty and ugliness and 'wellness' were hit and miss. how that intersects with race and class being quite well executed, but the ending left me conflicted (along with other aspects throughout the book) on how other characteristics are being perceived. characters were kinda dull and indistinct. still I can see its appeal and am curious to see what else the author writes!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Sexual violence, Racism, and Medical content

Moderate: Body shaming and Body horror

Minor: Cannibalism

farrahwho's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Holistik has changed everything. Natural beauty doesn’t exist here—it’s created.

i really wanted to be more invested in this story, but i just couldn't bring myself to care more. the pacing is all over the place, the chapters are broken up in a way that ruins the flow of certain scenes, and the mc is so frustratingly passive at times making this whole reading experience more arduous than it should have been. the "action" towards the end felt shoehorned due to a lack of sufficient build-up and the ending wasn't satisfying

(despite being somewhat hopeful/optimistic)

. doesn't really bring anything new to the table in terms of commentary on consumerism and beauty/wellness culture. if anything, this is just a slightly more grotesque, unnecessarily sexual version of rouge by mona awad (which i didn't really vibe with either!) 

i will say, the body horror in this was well done (i.e., managed to actually gross me out)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Body horror, and Medical content

Moderate: Death of parent and Sexual assault

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Bullying