I recently bought a copy of this off a Cambridge street vendor, and only partially because the title sounds a bit skeezy.The story is about Jael 97, a woman whose alpha-ranked looks have caused enough envy among her peers to make her consider having an artificial beta face fitted. Her post World War III society is governed by a mysterious dictator, whose seemingly arbitrary commands seem intended to keep everyone equal in mediocrity. When one of the dictator's decisions affects Jael in an unexpected way, Jael's vague dissatisfaction with the state becomes a quest to subvert it.This is the kind of book that you read more for the ideas behind it than the story. The plot is sometimes light on detail, and I wish it had been fleshed out a bit more. We do get a good amount of information on the society. It was an interesting read, and a fairly quick one. Some of the book's points were made in overly repetitive ways, and some aspects seemed superficial.I would suggest against reading the description on the back cover or the introduction, because they contain at least one detail that happens late enough in the story that I'd consider it a spoiler. I changed the Goodreads description to leave that part out.
An interesting dystopian novel based around an idea of everybody being equal, nobody looking above their station and attempting to eradicate envy or "Bad E". Parts of the eradication is by formalising standards of peoples faces, mainly women and follows the main character through this world. At times brutal and incredibly well written, the world is claustrophobic and creepy. It was enjoyable to read although seemed to lack something that I can't put my finger on. Certainly one for fans of dystopian fiction.
