3.5 stars

In this book, the author takes a look at the beauty industry. More specifically, she looks at cosmetic surgery.

I'm not sure why I decided to read this book, but I added it to my tbr quite some time ago. I've never had nor do I ever intend to get any type of cosmetic surgery (plastic surgery – if necessary – sure). However, this was kind of interesting. I especially liked the chapter the author talks about her own cosmetic surgery and how it might have become an addiction for her, until she had a major issue with one of the procedures. ( )

Geschokt over de ijdele oppervlakkige wereld van veel verwarde vrouwen ( )

4 stars: Very good

From the back cover:

Aging may be a natural fact of life, but for a growing number of Americans its hallmarks—wrinkles, love handles, jiggling flesh—are seen as obstacles to be conquered on the path to lasting, flawless beauty. In Beauty Junkies Alex Kuczynski, whose sly wit and fearless reporting in the Times has won her fans across the country, delivers a fresh and irresistible look at America's increasingly desperate pursuit of ultimate beauty by any means necessary.

From a group of high-maintenance New York City women who devote themselves to preserving their looks twenty-four hours a day, to a “surgery safari” in South Africa complete with “after” photographs of magically rejuvenated patients posing with wild animals, to a podiatrist's office in Manhattan where a “foot face-lift” provides women with the right fit for their $700 Jimmy Choos, Kuczynski portrays the all-American quest for self-transformation in all its extremes. In New York, lawyers become Botox junkies in an effort to remain poker-faced. In Los Angeles, women of an uncertain age nip and tuck their most private areas, so that every inch of their bodies is as taut as their lifted faces. Across the country, young women graduating from high school receive gifts of breast implants – from their parents.

As medicine and technology stretch the boundaries of biology, Kuczynski asks whether cosmetic surgery might even be part of human evolution, a kind of cosmetic survival of the fittest – or firmest? With incomparable portraits of obsessive patients and the equally obsessed doctors who cater to their dreams, Beauty Junkies examines the hype, the hope, and the questionable ethics surrounding the advent of each new miraculous technique.

----------

I thought this was an interesting, engaging tale of a life which I observe as a resident of southern California, but do not partake in myself; due to lack of interest.

I found the author's style to be interesting. She tells her tale in that conversational style which is very popular with lighter nonfiction books. It is easy to read, but ultimately wasn't factual or deep enough to warrant a 9 or 10 star.

I found some of her pronouncements about women to be spot on--however some I found quite galling, frankly. Perhaps its because she feels that cosmetic surgery is "the new feminism". She does save a chapter for telling us about her addiction--and its fair to say that it was an addiction--and how and why she got out of it.

Still, I found many of its points and facts interesting, some of which are noted below:

"More than two thirds of Americans who now choose elective cosmetic surgery make less than $50,000 a year."

"I think the bigger issue here is that we've reached this point where doctors are telling us what is beautiful. And that idea of beauty isn't found in nature and its not found in art. It's made up. It comes from greed, from pushing products and services we don't need. That's why it looks unnatural."

The American Society for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery classified small breasts as a deformity, rendering a normal body part something diseased that required medical treatment.

The [cosmetic] surgeon doesn't have to deal with annoying insurance companies. The surgeon sets the fees. There is no cost containment, and its all paid up front, in cash. Saving lives is noble, but doing so while fending off insurance carriers, monitoring costs, and paying huge insurance premiums is another matter. Cosmetic surgery has become an asylum for physicians defecting from an industry run by managed care in favor of the independence they hope to command in the free market. As a result, its economics have changed, as physicians, finance companies, credit bureaus collaborate to extend their services to a wider sector of the population.

In the 1500s Bakdassare Castiglione wrote....that a beautiful woman appears beautiful only if it is clear that she is not seeking approval for her beauty, if her "gestures are simple and natural, without working at being beautiful."

Critics of American popular culture have long looked down their noses upon the quest for bland conformity. We are a nation, they say, of follow me consumerism. We all wear the same clothes, eat at the same restaurants, and drive the same SUVs. But these television shows signal something far deeper: the herd mentality has reached alarming new levels. Are we now all going to have the same face--one that looks like whoever is on the cover of "Us" magazine?"

"The more power women feel they have over their own lives, the more comfortable they seem to feel about their looks. But it's an intersting question about whether we're more or less confident generally than we were twenty years ago.Twenty years ago fashion was still not mainstreamed the way it is now--everyone can have Gucci! --and there was still a little feminist shame in seeming to care too much about your looks.

NY magazine...put forth the idea that people in their thirties and fourties no longer believe that there is a definite point at which they must pass into the realm of the adult world. Those aging GenXers (ie. me) [and me--PokPok] don't believe in the former model of being a grown up, a formulaic existence that entailed the following in strict order: college, marriage, kids, boring job, and boring responsibilities, wearing a suit to work, retirement, death. 'It is also about rejecting a hand me down model of adulthood that asks, even necessitates, that you let go of everything you ever felt passionate about. It's about reimagining adulthood as a period defined by promise, rather than compromise." ( )

Holy crap this book will freak you out. Even the most seasoned follower of the plastic surgery obsession in the US will be shocked by what they read...liposuction for toes, NY male lawyers addicted to botox, and pathetic deaths all for beauty.