Few things in life give me the pleasure a good book can. When its going well it feels like a conversation with a great storyteller–like I, as a reader, am taking part in the story in some small way and riding along anxious to see how things turn out for the characters. There is a certain freedom in reading this way. I choose the book and can separate from the experience the moment it no longer remains worthwhile. That is why libraries are littered with books I’ve never finished. Beautiful You, the latest offering from Chuck Palahniuk, is a book I did finish and I’m all the better for doing so.
Beautiful You is strange mesh of science fiction and dark comedy in the tradition of Ellis’ Crooked Little Vein. The protagonist is a fairly plain Jane-styled character who gets caught up with a billionaire on the verge of launching a new series of sex toys. The billing for the toys (and thus the novel): A million husbands are about to be replaced. The lead becomes this central figure in an escapade that quickly becomes more than just a tale about a corporate genius making sex toys and arrives at a real message about the power of marketing and the way that we are controlled by trends.
Lately I’ve been seeing a terrible slew of women wearing leggings and boots. That’s practically all that’s out there. The book speaks to that craze indirectly. It seeks to explain or at least comment on why so many people become slaves to a singular trend. The shock of the book is the cavalier way that it addresses sex, but that wears off and it quickly becomes something you can laugh with and enjoy.