Natural Beauty
United States

Natural Beauty

by Ling Ling Huang

Identity & Belonging Literary Fiction Horror 2024

Summary

Natural Beauty follows a talented young pianist whose promising musical career is interrupted when an accident leaves her Chinese immigrant parents unable to care for themselves. Forced to abandon her ambitions, she takes a job at Holistik, an exclusive beauty and wellness store in New York City that caters to wealthy customers seeking increasingly extreme forms of physical perfection.

As she becomes immersed in this glamorous world, she discovers an industry where experimental treatments promise to reshape bodies, erase imperfections, and transform people’s appearances. Her growing fascination with Helen, the niece of the store’s charismatic owner, further draws her into a world of privilege, desire, and manipulation. Yet beneath the seductive promises of self-improvement lies something deeply disturbing.

Reviews

Login to leave a review.

No reviews yet. Be the first!

You might also like

The Taste of Sugar
The Taste of Sugar
Marisel Vera
There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven
There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven
Ruben Reyes Jr.
Dominicana
Dominicana
Angie Cruz
Neruda on the Park
Neruda on the Park
Cleyvis Natera
Country
United States
North America
About the author
Ling Ling Huang
Ling Ling Huang

Ling Ling Huang is a Taiwanese-born American writer and violinist whose fiction explores the intersections of identity, beauty, technology, and human relationships. Alongside her literary career, she has performed with several orchestras, including the Oregon Symphony and the Experiential Orchestra, which won a Grammy Award in 2021. Her debut novel, Natural Beauty (2023), is a speculative literary thriller examining beauty standards, consumerism, race, and the commodification of the human body through the story of a young musician drawn into the world of a luxury beauty company. Her second novel, Immaculate Conception (2025), explores artistic ambition, jealousy, and obsessive friendship in a near-future world where technology can allow people to access one another’s minds. Huang’s work blends speculative fiction with incisive social commentary, questioning how technology and cultural expectations shape identity, creativity, and intimacy.

View author page
Details
Published
2024
Author
Ling Ling Huang