Elise Hu is a correspondent and host-at-large for NPR, the American news network, and since April 2020, the inaugural host of TED Talks Daily, the daily podcast from TED that's downloaded a million times a day in all countries of the world. For nearly four years, she was the NPR bureau chief responsible for coverage of North Korea, South Korea, and Japan. Her work has earned the national DuPont Columbia, Edward R. Murrow, and Gracie awards, along with a Gannett Foundation Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism. She lives in Los Angeles with her three daughters.
Praise for Flawless
“The host of NPR’s “TED Talks Daily” shines a bright light into the
shadowy world of manufactured beauty and endless
“self-improvement”…Hu’s study of Korea’s beauty cult is fascinating
and disturbing, woven with threads of dark humor and personal
experience.”—Kirkus (starred review)
"A deep examination of South Korea’s booming beauty
industry."—Chris Vognar for The New York Times
"A remarkable investigation."—Slate
“Hu tracks the social, political, and economic results of a beauty
industry big enough to reshape a country. Her ability to lay out a
highly rigid and codified standard of beauty in a different culture
defamiliarizes our own enough to make its outlines and paradoxes
plain.“—Vox
"A must read, Flawless is much more than a book about culture’s
obsession with youth and beauty. It provides an urgent metaphorical
societal mirror and context for why we spend so much of our time in
the quixotic pursuit of perfection. Flawless helps us ask hard
questions and reclaim our agency in a world that wants to deny us
our power. Hu’s journalism shines a light on what is broken and
provides optimism for what can be instead.”—Eve Rodsky, New York
Times bestselling author of Fair Play
“Like a trip to the beauty counter with your most discerning
friend, Flawless deftly redirects us from the individual choices we
are bombarded with (so many serums, so little time!) and focuses us
instead on the transnational systems that sell consumption as the
key to wholeness. Well-researched and funny, it is Hu’s own
vulnerability and keen observations on the endless project of
female self-improvement that make each page sparkle.”—Alicia
Menendez, MSNBC Anchor and Author of The Likeability Trap
"[A] deep and deeply-felt investigation."—Jessica DeFino
"An incredibly readable mix of first-person narrative of life in
Seoul, rich cultural history, analysis and introspection. I loved
it, and if you share the same fascination and ambivalence around
beauty culture and serum culture in particular—you will too."—Anne
Helen Peterson, author of Out of Office
"My favorite non-fiction book I've read so far this year."—Virginia
Sole-Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Fat Talk
"This book is full of interesting dives into fixations on legs,
government-driven beauty and the technological gaze. I was
regularly pausing to absorb what I had just read."—NPR's Brittany
Luse
"If you think that only women are trapped by a society that demands
physical perfection, think again. Korean men now consume roughly
13% of the world's skincare products--even camouflage lip-balm for
men doing their mandatory military service. One can't help but
wonder if K-beauty standards are causing the human soul to rot
away. A fascinating look at the ugliness of Korea's cosmetic
underworld, sometimes shocking and often darkly funny as Elise
riffs on the more ridiculous aspects of the pursuit of "ideal"
beauty. Let me tell you dudes, the book gets under your
skin--in all the right ways."—Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice:
An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan
“Superbly researched and deeply insightful, Flawless is a timely,
provocative, and fascinating must-read. Elise Hu masterfully blends
an engrossing memoir about her experience as a foreigner, woman,
and mother of girls in Seoul with a journalistic exploration of the
disturbing forces behind K-beauty’s global rise [and the
increasingly algorithm-driven perceptions and unforgiving standards
of “beauty.”] I loved it.”—Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling
author of Happiness Falls
"If you're looking for a deeply engaging book about the past,
present and future of Korean beauty's global impact on culture, and
the relationship between beauty culture and tech, this book is for
you! I appreciate how Hu covers everything from political economic
history to theories around media and beauty in a really accessible
read."—Xiaowei Wang, author of Blockchain Chicken Farm
“In Flawless, Elise Hu explores not just why South Koreans are so
obsessed with skincare, but also how the beauty standards of Korean
culture have created a seemingly endless feedback loop of beauty
“problems” to be solved by an ever-increasing number of products. A
fascinating, meticulously reported deep dive into Korean beauty
culture.”—Doree Shafrir, co-host of Forever35 and author of Thanks
For Waiting: The Joy & Weirdness Of Being A Late Bloomer
“Richly researched…Given Hu’s uncompromising critique of
Korean beauty culture, we might expect her to conclude by rejecting
“appearance work” completely. But she does no such thing. Instead,
she takes a fresher and more interesting tack, reminding us that
self-stylization has often served as a form of revolt.”—The
Washington Post
“A fascinating and thoughtful deep-dive into the Korean culture of
lookism… For readers who have had little to no exposure to Korean
culture, it will feel like having your own knowledgeable tour guide
leading you through a complex world.”—Asia Pacific Arts
"One of 14 new books to dive into this sumer!...[An] incisive
investigation...a truly eye-opening summer read.”—W Magazine
“Nuanced, wide-ranging, and fluidly written, this peels back the
layers of a powerful cultural trend.” —Publishers Weekly
“Hu interrogates what it means to live in a world obsessed with
beauty and youth, the injustices this obsession helps perpetrate,
and what we can do about it. It’s a thoughtful, fascinating, and
rigorously researched book.”—BookRiot
"Rais[es] surprisingly profound questions.”—People
"Binge this on your way to botox or as you slather on retinol. This
non-fiction book will make you rethink what you know about beauty
standards via the lens of the K-beauty industry."—Betches
"Hu has written a brilliant, deeply researched book that reads like
a conversation with your smartest friend
... Refreshingly, the author’s lack of Western judgment
makes way for curiosity and respect."—The Globe and Mail
“It provides riveting insight into the Korean beauty industry, the
culture at large and Hu's individual experiences that anyone can
enjoy. It’s an absolute must-read for beauty lovers.”—Lourdes Avila
Uribe, HuffPost Books
"People can't get enough of K-beauty...Now, journalist Elise Hu has
written the definitive exploration of K-beauty in her sweeping new
book, which includes interviews with South Korean women as Hu asks
the tough questions about our quests for perfection, as well as
looks at the industry from a larger lens of gender disparities,
consumerism, and beauty obsession."—Nylon
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