Pixel flesh How toxic beauty culture harms women

Author Atlanta, a former beauty industry brand and marketing expert, takes an informed look at visual perfection ideals and their chilling contemporary consequences. Atlanta cites disturbing trends of younger and younger teens opting for cosmetic surgeries and face and body reconstructions, and of the seemingly mindless sharing of air-brushed, photoshopped selfies. She weaves in art history, cultural references, recent research, and medical statistics while quoting voices ranging from Margaret Atwood to Virginia Woolf. She explores social and psychological aspects of adolescence, body image, eating disorders, pregnancy, abortion, pornography, and sexual intimacy--life experiences once conducted pretty much in private but now common fodder for social media influencers and purveyors, who often make their content with little attention paid to accuracy or producer expertise, let alone consideration of consumer age or maturity. Atlanta is brutally honest and often uses herself as an example of an informed, intelligent woman who knows she's being manipulated but still obsesses over her physical appearance. She ends with hope for universal adoption of realistic, inclusive attitudes towards natural and unique beauty for future generations. Many readers will relate to Atlanta's experience, and appreciate this thoughtful consideration of physical female beauty and how it's dictated and judged.

When an expert in the beauty business surveys the field, she finds a bleak and frightening landscape. Atlanta, who has long been a figure in the beauty industry as a writer, editor, and brand consultant, deftly gauges and examines the pressure on young women to be constantly beautiful, fresh, and fashionable. She is brave enough to recount her firsthand experience with beauty culture and supplements her investigation with interviews with influencers, researchers, and young women who religiously follow the trends. She even spent time with Kylie Jenner, the source code for much of the modern beauty business, who in person turned out to be much more ambiguous and uncertain than her social media profile suggests. For many young women, beauty has become an obsession, and they spend much of their life (and money) on skin care routines, diets, and surgical enhancements. Atlanta acknowledges that beauty has always had a commercial aspect, but social media has taken it to a new, ultracompetitive level. Filters and software apps mean that a digital image can be endlessly improved and perfected, to the point that reality has become detached from what is presented on the screen. The result of all this is stress, depression, and heartache for millions of women worldwide. Far from freeing women, beauty has become another tool of manipulation, and Atlanta concludes that the cycle must end. In the closing chapter, she offers useful advice on breaking the addiction, and it begins with true self-awareness. "You do not owe anyone perfect, and you don't owe anyone pretty," she writes. "Remove the glossy filter that smooths out any negativity, resist the feminine urge to lighten the mood, or to make others comfortable [and] practice radical honesty with yourself and others." This book is courageous, revealing, and occasionally painful, and Atlanta writes with verve and authority. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.