Soho Press, Belletristik, youthjuice (Englisch, E.K. Sathue, 2024)

American Psycho meets The Devil Wears Prada: outrageous body horror for the goop generation A bloodthirsty copywriter realizes that beauty is possible&mdash at a terrible cost&mdash in this surreal, satirical send-up of NYC It-girl culture. From Sophia Bannion&rsquo s first day on the Storytelling team at HEBE, a luxury skincare/wellness company based in New York&rsquo s trendy SoHo neighborhood, it&rsquo s clear something is deeply amiss. But Sophia, pushing thirty with plenty of skeletons in her closet next to the designer knockoffs, doesn&rsquo t care. Though she leads an outwardly charmed life, she aches for a deeper meaning to her flat existence&mdash and a cure for her brutal nail-biting habit. She finds it all and more at HEBE, and with Tree Whitestone, HEBE&rsquo s charismatic founder and CEO. Soon, Sophia is addicted to her HEBE lifestyle, especially youthjuice, the fatty, soothing moisturizer Tree has asked Sophia to test. But when cracks in HEBE&rsquo s infrastructure start to worsen&mdash and Sophia learns the gruesome secret ingredient at the heart of youthjuice&mdash she has to decide how far she&rsquo s willing to go to stay beautiful forever. Glittering with ominous flashes of Sophia&rsquo s coming-of-rage story, former beauty editor E.K. Sathue&rsquo s horror debut is as incisive as it is stomach-churning in its portrayal of all-consuming female friendship and the beauty industry&rsquo s short attention span. youthjuice does to skincare influencers what Bret Easton Ellis did to yuppies. You&rsquo ll never moisturize the same way again.