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Activate your digital access. Manage your account settings. My Account Log Out Get the news Log In or Subscribe to skip Sign in with FacebookSign in with GoogleSign in FAQ 58 Share This Story! Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about FacebookEmailTwitterGoogle+LinkedInPinterest Dark satire 'Beautiful You' takes on modern erotica Chuck Palahniuk takes on the culture of modern erotica and fame in 'Beautiful You.' Loading… Post to Facebook ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ Dark satire 'Beautiful You' takes on modern erotica ________ ____________________________________________________________ Chuck Palahniuk takes on the culture of modern erotica and ____________________________________________________________ Check out this story on USATODAY.com: http://usat.ly/1tDmBE {# IFRAME: http://api.recaptcha.net/noscript?k=6Lf7fuESAAAAAJ3_KMIDbkQySsEE0vMkLXU kq4eY #} CancelSend Sent! A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Join the Nation's Conversation To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs Dark satire 'Beautiful You' takes on modern erotica Brian Truitt , USA TODAY 2 p.m. EDT October 19, 2014 Beautiful You Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk (Doubleday) in General fiction Penny Harrigan discovers she is a test subject for a unique device and must prevent its maker from using it to take over the world Buy Now * Buy Now * Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Google Play * iBooks * Indiebound * Kobo * Zola USA TODAY BEST-SELLING BOOKS # 114 this week # - last week 1 weeks listed # 114 best week Debuted: October 30 2014 USA TODAY Rating Sex is on the mind of author Chuck Palahniuk, and it is taken to extremes and tweaked to outrageous lengths in his latest novel, Beautiful You. 50 Shades of Grey this isn't. In fact, the book is almost a middle finger to "mommy porn" and the popularity of modern erotica — while also being a smart, satirical take on misogyny, fame, the fashion industry, self-help and science. With works such as Fight Club, Damned and Choke, Palahniuk is infamous for taking a sharp scalpel to whatever he's thinking about at the moment. In this case, sex is on the docket with the tale of Penny Harrigan, a girl right off the bus from Nebraska trying to make it in a stuffy boys' club of New York law firms. There's nothing really special at all about her until she meets C. Linus Maxwell, a billionaire tech magnate with a history of sexual conquests — thus his nickname "Climax-Well." Maxwell's little black book contains British royalty, an Oscar-winning actress and even the president (who is female and apparently a saucy minx outside of the Oval Office). Yet there's something about Penny that — ahem — excites the enigmatic playboy so much as to embark on a whole Pretty Woman-esque fling with her. Penny becomes the toast of the town and earns her own "the Nerd's Cinderella" moniker in the tabloids, though she has folks warning her it's too good to be true. Behind closed bedroom doors, things get very weird for Penny, as she becomes a lab rat in Maxwell's erotic experimentation. He's obsessed with increasing sexual pleasure for women, even pushing it to a near-fatal level, and Penny gets embroiled in a larger conspiracy when the release of Maxwell's "Beautiful You" sex-toy line is just the start of his nefarious plan. The novel is full of explicit sex used for narrative and lampooning purposes, and not in an erotic way at all. He wants sex to be uncomfortable and weird — here, an orgasm is not a good thing but instead a metaphor for pleasure as an enslaving, controlling device. Palahniuk's graphic storytelling is bound to ruffle puritanical feathers — which is probably part of his point — but it's essential to the societal takedown. Nothing is sacred and everything gets torched, from pop culture (at one point vampire novels are used as thrown weapons, an obvious Twilight reference) to celebrity. In Palahniuk's world, potatoes are engineered for sexual purposes and you have to go to Nepal to find an ancient master of "erotic training," a sex Yoda of sorts, who helps Penny when too much pleasure sickens women across the globe. If that's a turn-on, then you'll enjoy Beautiful You from beginning to satisfying climax. Beautiful You By Chuck Palahniuk Doubleday, 240 pp. Three stars Goodreads reviews for Beautiful You IFRAME: http://www.goodreads.com/api/reviews_widget_iframe?did=5005&format=html &header_text=Goodreads+reviews+for+Beautiful%20You&isbn=9780385538039&l inks=0AF&review_back=fff&stars=149CEE&stylesheet=http://www.gannett-cdn .com/static/usat-web-static-1804.0/css/bundles/books.min.css?v=1804.0&t ext=000 USA Today's Best-Selling Books List * 1 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Marie Kondo * 2 The Choice Nicholas Sparks * 3 Spark Joy Marie Kondo * 4 The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins USA TODAY Review * 5 January: Calendar Girl Book 1 Audrey Carlan USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books List