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| Plot Summary of It's My Body and I'll Cry If I Want To |
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"A female journalist in a career slump infiltrates a state-of-the-art beauty clinic in this satirical look at the pursuit of beauty in the not-too-distant future. In an institution devoted to appearances, she finds new ways of thinking of her own beauty."
Lenore Johnson, Resident Scholar
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Bold Books, Sep 2001, 14.99, 232 pp.
ISBN: 0968709400
Middle aged writer Beth Middleton wonders how her life fell into some sort of disastrous free fall. Her husband has left her after years of marriage, leaving her in financial trouble and raising their troubled angry fourteen-year-old mostly by herself. She hates her work, which barely pays the recurring bills and insures she ignores any self-indulgent pampering that she might fantasize.
A potential client Darby representing Perceived Ugliness Syndrome asks Beth to infiltrate The Beauty Institute to learn the secret of a new treatment to make women so beautiful that PUS believes it includes a side effect of making females look perfect in their coffins. Though wary, Beth needs cash and agrees to go deep undercover by posing as a customer of the Institute. Beth receives the full treatment until she feels competent to pen an article that ironically describes the mirror contradictions of the beauty industry. However, everything changes when she accidentally learns the secret of the new treatment, as nothing is what it seems in a world where beauty is skin deep.
IT'S MY BODY AND I'LL CRY IF I WANT TO is a delightful satire that rips the skin off the multi-zillion dollar beauty industry. Beth is an uplifting individual as she struggles to survive in a world in which beauty is everything while one's original DNA is too ugly to consider. The fast-paced story line is no powder puff as Sharleen Jonasson intelligently furbishes a delightfully amusing amateur sleuth industrial espionage tale that uses no gloss or silicon yet subtly applies cosmetics to condemn an industry.
Harriet Klausner
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Harriet Klausner, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of It's My Body and I'll Cry If I Want To |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- thoughtful
- humorous
Time/era of story
- near future
- present (2000-2010)
Life of a profession:
- writer
- barber/beautician
Internal struggle/realization?
Yes
Struggle over
- vague finding self/purpose in life (i.e. no plot to book)
Crime & Police story
Yes
Story of
- conman stealing/fraud
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Job/Profession/Status story
Yes
Main Character
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- journalist
- writer
Age:
- 40's-50's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
- quite fatty
Main Adversary
Identity:
- an organization
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- a little/some
- throughout most of the book.
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 4 ()
United States
Yes
Misc setting
- resort/hotel
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- no torture/death
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Unusual Style:
- a lot of stream of consciousness
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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