Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery [Kindle Edition]

Alex Kuczynski (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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, Kuczynski discloses her own beauty addiction in the form of Botox, collagen derived from cadavers and fetal foreskin cells, liposuction, eyelid lifts and eventually a botched Restylane treatment that left her housebound for days with a disfigured lip.(Oct. 17)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

New York Times reporter Kuczynski's -docu-mentary-like narrative on the U.S. cosmetic industry is at once an expose, a gripping series of related articles, and an autobiography. The author has produced harrowing tales of our denial of aging--for men and for women. She has done her homework many times over, interviewing patients and doctors, talking to company executives who support the industry (for instance, imaging systems and pharmaceuticals), attending trade shows, and researching past news. What emerges is information about every surgery under the knife, including gastric bypass, breast augmentation, and liposuction; all are painstakingly detailed in the author's engaging, hard-to-put down fashion. When she herself confesses to an abnormal need for Botox and other dermatological enhancements, and when her own lip replumping goes awry, it is a clear cry for Americans of all sizes and shapes and ages to seriously and continuously reexamine their sense of selves--via a process that's much more than skin deep. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 381 KB
• Print Length: 304 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0385508530
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (October 17, 2006)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000MAH5NI
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #278,944 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Born in Lima, Peru, Alex Kuczynski has written for The New York Times since 1997, where as a reporter she has covered subjects as wide-ranging as Botox, Buddhism and billionaires. Her work appears in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review and magazines like Harper's Bazaar and O: The Oprah Magazine. Her first book, Beauty Junkies, an expose of the cosmetic-surgery industry, received critical praise and was translated into ten languages. She is the mother of two children under the age of three and is currently at painstaking, grindingly slow work on her next book, a work of fiction. www.alexkuczynski.com for updates.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A History and an Awakening, November 23, 2006

By 

R. Spell "raspell" (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery (Hardcover)

This book has generated great buzz as written by a noted NY Times writer who becomes obsessed with plastic surgery at the age of 28 and have various procedures over the next ten years. It's an interesting story but it only occupies 15% of the book and is the closing.

Prior to that the book is an exhaustive summary of the history of plastic surgery dating back to the 1800s and sorted by the various body types being transposed, i.e., face,[..] botox, etc. Therefore the book is written somewhat as a clinical history until she closes with her personal story which is quite interesting. She uses herself as the new American who obsesses with not growing old and builds a compelling case that Americans will use more and more plastic surgery as some South American countries are currently experiencing.

Overall, a quality book on the subject. Personally, I preferred the recent "Confessions of a Park Avenue Plastic Surgeon" for a summary of the issue and more in depth personal stories from the perspective of doctor and patient.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent., December 17, 2006

By 

Gretchen C. Rubin (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery (Hardcover)

I'm not much interested in cosmetic surgery (which is not the same as plastic surgery, one of the things I learned from the book), but I am a HUGE fan of Alex Kuczynski's work so will read anything she writes. For instance, I don't like shopping, but I always read her NYT column, Critical Shopper, just for the fun of it.

As I expected, I found this a fascinating book and whizzed through it in two days. Lots of great information. As the title indicates, this isn't a guide for people who are considering cosmetic surgery, but an analysis of the industry and the trends behind it. She throws in some of her own experiences, which are just as (or perhaps more) intriguing as the reportorial sections.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The boomers are making cosmetic surgery boom, October 26, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery (Hardcover)

There is a boom in the cosmetic surgery business, in part because the boomers are tipping sixty and want to remain young forever. Alex Kuczynski chronicles her own personal adventures in the world of Botox, chin tucks, eyebrow lifts etc etc. She tells the story of an Industry which is increasingly introducing new products to answer the demands of an appearance obsessed America. A tone of criticism, also self- criticism and ridicule is a fair and natural part of the work. And the tales of the mess-ups caused by certain procedures , and the money wasted on them is also a big part of the story.
The book is an informative guide to a subject which obsesses a lot of people.
Thinking of all this stuff in relation to myself I know I am simply not the type to go for, or want anyone close to me to go for such procedures. On the other hand as the white accumulates in the beard, and the hair becomes sparser on the head I sometimes look at the old old with a certain dread and simply fear the day when my very appearance may want to make others head for the exit. So I understand a certain kind of obsession with the subject.
I would only say I consider another American obsession, that with 'health' a far healthier one.