If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

This book follows four young women navigating life in the brutally competitive, consumerist city of Seoul. I did not know this, but South Korea is believed to have the highest plastic surgery rates in the world, with a third of women thought to have gone under the knife by 30. Eyelid surgery and jaw slimming are among the most popular procedures, and improving physical appearance isn’t just vanity – it’s an openly recognized way to get ahead in a cut-throat job market. So it is a deeply patriarchal society that makes for tough living if you are female. The four women, who live near each other, are likely chosen to reflect this unsavory situation. Kyuri is a room salon girl: a kind of geisha that is a seemingly well-paid opportunity that is only open to the “prettiest 10%”. In reality, she is tied in by debt, and feels her primped body breaking down thanks to the heavy nightly drinking required of her role. She shares an apartment with Miho, an artist who, after winning a scholarship to the US, became embroiled with a hyper-wealthy crowd; it’s no shock that such grotesque riches don’t result in kind behavior. Across the hallway is Ara, a mute hairdresser who tries to escape her daily grind – along with the trauma of an assault– by obsessing over a K-pop star and living more in a world of her own than in the present. Downstairs, pregnant Wonna, who chose her husband almost entirely based on his mother being dead, panics about losing her baby and her job. It is a high wire life for each of them, and one without much in the way of pleasure or support. This a very well written, but not very happy, story.