Hu’s study of Korea’s beauty cult is fascinating and disturbing, woven with threads of dark humor and personal experience.
The host of “TED Talks Daily” and host at large for NPR shines a bright light into the shadowy world of manufactured beauty and endless “self-improvement.”
There is a Korean phrase, bbali bbali, which means fast, fast. Hu, a winner of the Edward R. Murrow Award, among others, believes it sums up South Korea’s rush into hypermodernity. When she arrived in Seoul in 2015 to establish a bureau for NPR, she was stunned by the cult of beauty that grips Korean women. The aim of Western cosmetics is often to accentuate natural features, but in South Korea, the goal is skin that seems so perfect it needs nothing else. The beauty industry in Korea relies on intensive research and marketing by the skin care firms, which provide a continuing procession of products. The author also looks at the massive business of cosmetic surgery, which can amend any part of the body. This is less about self-expression and more about an aspiration toward perfection: blemish-free skin, long, shining hair, a narrow nose, anime-size eyes, a delicate jawline, and legs shaped to meet a mathematical formula. It ultimately leads to a sameness of look, but Korean women see it as a necessary investment for social success, and the few who buck the trend face ostracism. Looking at this endless commodification of the female body, Hu asks: “Where do we draw the line on appearance work when the work gets less and less invasive and previously impossible changes become possible?” She also notes that some women, accustomed to the filtered images on Snapchat and Instagram, want to be “improved” to look like their digital images. These trends, exacerbated by social media and Korea’s export marketing machine, are having a global impact, including in the U.S. Hu is unsure about how these issues will play out, but she hopes that there will be a turn away from relentless superficiality. She is a capable guide to the current fraught landscape.
Hu’s study of Korea’s beauty cult is fascinating and disturbing, woven with threads of dark humor and personal experience.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9780593184189
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.
Another chapter in a long fight against inequality.
Building on his Fighting Oligarchy tour, which this year drew 280,000 people to rallies in red and blue states, Sanders amplifies his enduring campaign for economic fairness. The Vermont senator offers well-timed advice for combating corruption and issues a robust plea for national soul-searching. His argument rests on alarming data on the widening wealth gap’s impact on democracy. Bolstered by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed campaign finance limits, “100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion” on 2024 elections. Sanders focuses on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, describing their enactment of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with its $1 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans and big social safety net cuts, as the “largest transfer of wealth” in living memory. But as is his custom, he spreads the blame, dinging Democrats for courting wealthy donors while ignoring the “needs and suffering” of the working class. “Trump filled the political vacuum that the Democrats created,” he writes, a resonant diagnosis. Urging readers not to surrender to despair, Sanders offers numerous legislative proposals. These would empower labor unions, cut the workweek to 32 hours, regulate campaign spending, reduce gerrymandering, and automatically register 18-year-olds to vote. Grassroots supporters can help by running for local office, volunteering with a campaign, and asking educators how to help support public schools. Meanwhile, Sanders asks us “to question the fundamental moral values that underlie” a system that enables “the top 1 percent” to “own more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.” Though his prose sometimes reads like a transcribed speech with built-in applause lines, Sanders’ ideas are specific, clear, and commonsensical. And because it echoes previous statements, his call for collective introspection lands as genuine.
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798217089161
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
