Length: 222 pages
Genre: Satire
Naive, ambitious Penny Harrigan, from Omaha, works as an assistant at a prestigious law firm in New York City where she meets Cornelius Linus Maxwell, the richest man in the world, known to the press as "Climax-well" due to his string of famous glamorous girlfriends. He sweeps Penny off her feet, and soon she finds herself living a jet-set lifestyle meeting the most powerful and beautiful people in the world, with every luxury she could possible want. However Penny immediately realises that she is not Maxwell's girlfriend, but a guinea pig for his experiments in sex and sensuality, and he is using the results of his experiments to devise a groundbreaking range of sex toys for women, marketed as "Beautiful You". As the women of the world become addicted to the extreme pleasures of the Beautiful You products, Maxwell's darker purpose becomes clear.
This is the fourteenth novel from cult American author Chuck Palahniuk, who is probably still best known for his debut novel Fight Club (1996). Like most of his books, this is a contemporary satire, in which an aspect of modern life is take to apocalyptic extremes, notably sex and consumerism, and the exploitation of women's sexuality. This is not one of Palahniuk's best works by any means, the ending in particular is disappointing, but it is well-written and raises some compelling themes, even if they could be explored further.
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