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Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery

A star writer for the New York Times Styles section captures the follies, frauds, and fanaticism that fuel the American pursuit of youth and beauty in a wickedly revealing excursion into the burgeoning business of cosmetic enhancement.

Americans are aging faster and getting fatter than any other population on the planet. At the same time, our popular notions of perfect beauty have become so strict it seems even Barbie wouldn?t have a chance of making it into the local beauty pageant.

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. Lively and entertaining, thought-provoking and disturbing, Beauty Junkies is destined to be one of the most talked-about books of the season.

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Smarter Choice Beauty Junkies : Inside Our $15... by Alex Kuczynski. ISBN13: 9780385508537. ISBN10: 0385508530. Published by Random House, Inc.. Edition: 06 Used	Textbooks.com 2,445 reviews *smarter certified	$25 $13.75 Coupon 2 coupons available Code:No Code Required Detail: Free shipping w/ $25 purchase at Textbooks. Expires:Dec-31-2009 Restriction:Unknow Code:xicyx Detail: Use coupon code xicyx at checkout to enjoy Free Shipping on your order plus enter to win $500 at Textbooks. Expires:Dec-31-2009 Restriction:Unknow	See it

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ProductReviews79/100 (34 Reviews)

Recent Reviews

4/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Dec-17-2007; Informative and entertaining; An interesting look into the beauty industry. Creative, funny, and informative. I only gave it a 4 because of how it left me feeling. I've never really considered plastic surgery, but there were times in the book that I actually...; read full review | report as inappropriate

3/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Sep-28-2007; Extreme Critic; The endless struggle against looking old or inadequate, the inability to accept the changing or imperfect body and face, coupled with the relentless promotion of the technology to reverse the aging process, spawned a $15 billion industry...; read full review | report as inappropriate

4/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Aug-01-2007; Scary, but good read.; Beauty Junkies, by Alex Kuczynski, gives us the history of plastic and cosmetic surgery, the charlatans, the risks, the popularity especially in the U.S. and its ridiculous extremes. The story is told deftly, with humor and a sense of...; read full review | report as inappropriate

3/5: From: Amazon; Posted: May-15-2007; Informative chit chat; This book was an eye-opener for someone not familiar with cosmetic surgery and beauty procedures. Lots of interesting information but rather rambling and lots of spin on the info.; read full review | report as inappropriate

Selected Reviews

4/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Dec-17-2007; Informative and entertaining; An interesting look into the beauty industry. Creative, funny, and informative. I only gave it a 4 because of how it left me feeling. I've never really considered plastic surgery, but there were times in the book that I actually...; read full review | report as inappropriate

3/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Sep-28-2007; Extreme Critic; The endless struggle against looking old or inadequate, the inability to accept the changing or imperfect body and face, coupled with the relentless promotion of the technology to reverse the aging process, spawned a $15 billion industry...; read full review | report as inappropriate

1/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Dec-06-2006; This author needs a good copyeditor; Within a few pages, I found myself seriously wondering if I had accidently obtained an unedited copy of the book: the punctuation choices (or lack thereof) are baffling. The book is difficult to follow as a result and any entertainment...; read full review | report as inappropriate

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