yuck

Alex Kuczynski is her own best rat! At once self-absorbed, shallow, and removed from the tethers that ground mere mortals such as myself (how else could she manage to spend $100,000 on mere cosmetic "maintenance"), Ms. Kuczynski is also one hell of a writer and possessed of a keen mind and a cold eye that she is not afraid to turn on herself, as she pursues her quest for everlasting beauty.

Alex Kuczynski has a wonderful narrative/journalistic style and this book, like US magazine is hard to put down. She tells many stories about successful and tragic plastic surgeries, and interviews several "junkies" and many doctors. She lays out the history of plastic surgery...which is fascinating, and chronicles the many factors that have led to its explosive growth. I have to say, I couldn't put the book down, and I learned a lot!

This was pretty good. The author uses her first-hand experience with plastic surgery to figure out why it's so popular. I must admit that the author admitting to Botox injections and liposuction made me feel, well, a bit morally superior to her; I was mostly battling with my arrogance while I read it (an advance reader's copy from the bookstore I worked at), and that's more of what I remember than any facts from the book. I mailed my mom a copy when she threatened to get a face lift and to my relief she decided against it.

Before reading this, I was naive to all the varieties of cosmetic surgery and to the billions of dollars American's spend annually for things like collagen injections for feet so they better withstand the pounding shock of high heels etc. Kuczynski is an intelligent blunt writer isn't afraid to try a number of these tactics on herself and she drags the reader right along with her. It's full of interviews with patients, doctors, and throws out a number of celebrity examples when explaining the results of these surgeries.

The second part about her personal obsession/experience (both good & bad) was the most insightful. However, I found the fact that ANY physician can set himself up as a 'cosmetic surgeon' with no additional training beyond a 'weekend seminar' and that there are very little resources for the consumer to find out about negative incidents or claims.

Frightening at times in accounts of the history of cosmetic surgery, and the lengths people go to today to engage in it.

Sastisfies the craving for voyuerism.

A podiatrist shortens toes so her clients can fit into Jimmy Choos, and a lawyer who's argued before the Supreme Court routinely lies to a succession of doctors to feed his Botox habit. As this depressing survey of a global beauty business rooted in self-hatred and a fear of aging demonstrates, an unfortunate few are literally dying to be pretty: the Nigerian first lady expired after liposuction and a tummy tuck, and Olivia Goldsmith, whose novels lampooned middle-aged women afraid to look their age, succumbed during a chin tuck. New York Times reporter Kuczynski has attitude to spare as she outs Sarah Jessica Parker and Nicole Kidman as probable Botox users, and assesses the "traumatized" naked body of a litigator who's showing off the results of a total body lift after gastric-bypass surgery: "to be honest and brutal and bitchy, she doesn't look that great." A canny and witty guide to the excesses of a conformist society with more money than sense,
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Absolutely loved it. Entertaining, informative, and so insightful. I really enjoyed every page.

I am really, really starting to appreciate nonfiction. (=

Much like how I think that aspiring young actors would benefit from reading Secrets of My Hollywood Life and its subsequent series, it is imperative that anyone who is even remotely curious about cosmetic surgery (which, as I learned, is NOT the same as plastic surgery) should take the time to read this fascinating, horrifying, brutally sad commentary/memoir on what beauty has become in American society.

My heart ached many times over as I read accounts of men and women who strive for external validation of personal significance and worth-- some of whom died in search of that fleeting vanity. The author herself, a New York Times reporter, shows some steel in her willingness to incriminate herself as a former "beauty junkie" to serve as a warning to all of us who are ignorant of what it is really like.

Alex Kuczynski has done to the allure of plastic surgery what Lori Gottlieb did to the myth of "not settling" in her book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough: exposing the misconceptions, the ugly truth, and the lies that we've come to believe. Bravo.

Interesting read. We all have a warped view of beauty nowadays, but I guess if you can't beat em, you can try your best to meet the bar that nobody can really reach for this ideal of beauty.

Kuczynski describes in sometimes horrifying detail the ins and outs of the cosmetic surgery business. You will find yourself in shock and awe at the price people pay in order to indulge in the fountain of youth.