Extreme Makeover
Dan Wells
2016, 416 pages
Fiction
Lyle Fontanelle is under a lot of pressure. As the chief scientist for NewYew, he’s responsible for developing a new anti-aging hand lotion. Bored with his job and disgusted by health and beauty corporate culture, he’s just going through the motions until the day he realizes that his new hand lotion is changing people. It’s not just stopping aging; it’s actually rewriting their DNA, turning them into physical clones of someone else. Lyle is horrified by his product, but NewYew thinks it may be the greatest beauty product ever. Who doesn’t want to look like someone else? As Lyle stands by, the NewYew executives plan to release the lotion as fast as possible. But the lotion gets into the wrong hands, and then Lyle is really in trouble.
Extreme Makeover is a fast-paced book with a fun twist in the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic genre. The science is implausible, but Wells’s take on modern culture and the lengths to which people will go for beauty is different enough to make this book stand out in a crowded field. Recommended for horror and science-fiction fans.
Nora CascaddenConcord Public Library
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