Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk

I started Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk last night and finished it today at work, not surprisingly it was a book I could not put down. If you are easily embarrassed by things of sexual nature, read this alone in your room, under a blanket tent. I am a strikingly open minded human and my face was bright red during majority of this book, thankfully we have to remove the dust jacket to borrow at work so no one knew I was basically reading porn on my smoke break.

EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE

That being said, let's dive in, so right away our first page is you main character Penny (whom you will grow to like, then love, then be annoyed a bit by and then love again) being raped in a court room with tons of witnesses who do nothing to help. True to Chuck's usual form we start almost towards the end and then bounce to the beginning. Penny is a 25 year old woman working at a law firm in between intern and actual lawyer, not really sure what she wants with her life she's kind of drifting along a borrowed dream.  At this law firm she meets Cornelius Maxwell (better know as CliMaxwell chuckle chuckle) basically the world's richest man, who chooses the moment he witnesses her drop complex Starbucks drinks all over herself upon falling onto her face, out to dinner. She's skeptical but who turns down an attractive, older, rich man? Did I mention he's crazy rich? Their romance takes off...into the bedroom where he uses her as a guinea pig for a line of intense sexual products called Beautiful You, that will enable a woman to virtually never need a partner for sexual climax ever again. After 136 days of intense orgasm after orgasm he banishes her from his side. Penny decides she will not stand for watching women across the globe lose their entire lives due to achieving sexual nirvana repeatedly in their rooms. Max warns Penny from the start he has the power to kill not only her but every woman with his devices if she does not behave as a "good girl" and basically shush her mouth. Well points for Penny, she fights hard, and then loses. Finally to save countless lives she agrees to wed Maxwell whereupon she learns everything she believed his master plan to be was not at all the case and grows to replace him in her own role of villainy.

Just like pretty much all of Chuck's books, hints are placed through the entirety of this novel cluing you into the ending quickly in the beginning but still offers quite a few surprises along the way. This satirical novel about today's obsession with sex, gender inequality and the power of consumerism reveals a lot of skewed societal views with a lot of off the cuff humor to lighten up the intensely sexual scenes. Definitely an easy, fun read, but be careful not too take it too seriously and find yourself offended.