Hi booklovers! I hope you are doing well. For the past two months, Ariel and I bring you our wrap up for horror picks that we read as part of the Horror-A-Month challenge on Storygraph. I decided to read The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley while waiting for my hold of Mexican Gothic and for a short book, it had so much packed into it that I must bring it to your attention. Note that this is not a tale for everyone and not a book I would recommend unless you want to explore the concept of gender roles and mushrooms. Take a look at the synopsis and then I will share my thoughts!
Somewhere away from the cities and towns, in the Valley of the Rocks, a society of men and boys gather around the fire each night to listen to their history recounted by Nate, the storyteller. Requested most often by the group is the tale of the death of all women.
They are the last generation.
One night, Nate brings back new secrets from the woods; peculiar mushrooms are growing from the ground where the women’s bodies lie buried. These are the first signs of a strange and insidious presence unlike anything ever known before…
Discover the Beauty.
Content Notes: Contains body horror, murder, genocide and sexual content.
Thoughts on The Beauty
The Beauty is a short story about a post-apocalyptic scenario where all women have died from a disease. In a small community, far away from big cities, a group of men have bonded together. They have lived through the death of their female family and are now trying to get by. When mushrooms start to grow from the bodies of the women, some of the men are fascinated. Whoever touches the mushrooms disappears.
On Stories and Truths
The protagonist of The Beauty is a young man named Nate. He is in his early twenties. He thinks fondly of his mother and his job in the Group is to collect stories about women from the other members and share them after dinner. I really liked Nate as the protagonist as he was able to shed light on a number of themes – the power of truth and stories, how our feelings affect the stories we tell, what addiction looks like, the conflicts between people who know what something should feel like and what it isn’t. Nate is the spokesperson for the Beauty and he believes that this is the next step to survival – now that there are no women, the Beauty (these mushroom like beings that have grown out of the women’s dead bodies) are the way to keep humankind alive.
At the beginning, when there are no Beauty, Nate recounts the story of how the Group of men came to be. In later versions of the stories after meeting with the Beauty, the story changes to reflect how they were destined to meet. To deal with the reality at hand, Nate offers a new interpretation of the events in the past.
On Unnatural Happenings
You can probably guess that there is sexual content in this book related to men and Beauty. Nate is a young man and since the only female relationships he had was with his mother, it is not surprising that he and other young men like him take Beauty in an enamoured fashion. Once a bond has been created between a Beauty and a man, they are kind of together forever (truly until death do them apart). However, older men who knew what it was like to have a wife and a mature relationship, find these relationships with Beauty quite repulsive. In spite of that, they still continue to use Beauty to quench their sexual needs.
The Beauty is a satire. Men have historically been the stronger ones, the ones who do all the unpleasant tasks around the house, while the women are the ones who give birth to kids and take care of them and the family. In The Beauty, the roles are reversed. There are no more women and Beauty have taken the place that the men used to occupy.
On Genocide
While The Beauty offers numerous thoughts about men, it is also interesting to think about Beauty as beings. While the men use them like women for their desires, the Beauty have their own strengths. While they choose not to do anything when one of the men kills a Beauty in protest, when a child is involved they will kill for it. The men refer to the Beauty as ‘it’, separating them from ‘she’. Another aspect that I found interesting (and quite horrifying – spoilers) was after some of the Beauty killed some of the men, their partner Beauty wanted the remaining men. It was surreal and gross.
Overall, The Beauty is an interesting read. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, it is believable in some ways. There are lots of parallels between men and women through men and Beauty. This is horror in a gross, disgusting and repulsive way and plot-wise, the story is a good one because it keeps progressing and honestly, I didn’t want any of it to be true. I just wanted Nate to be high on mushrooms. Alas, he is not. If you do choose to read this, just be ready for grossness and unnatural twists.
** The Beauty is now out in stores and likely at your local library as well so get a copy and let me know what you think! **
Cover image: Photo by Presetbase Lightroom Presets on Unsplash
Be First to Comment