Dark wellness: A new genre of fiction traces grim extremes of self-care

Deceptive utopias, cult-like communities, costly formulas for eternal youth... check out tales born of the breathless drive to be the best version of ourselves.

First there was #ThatGirl, with her eucalyptus-scented mists, Stanley cup full of green juice and massages that doubled as workouts. The aesthetic went viral on social media in 2021 and was criticised for promoting unattainable ideals of perfection in the guise of self-care.

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#ThatGirl was succeeded by #CleanGirl, a minimalist focused on self-improvement.

This can become a relentless quest too. The dark side of the drive to be the best version of oneself has lately spawned a new sub-genre of literary fiction. It’s called “dark wellness”. Take a look.

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The hidden costs of bliss: One of Our Kind (2024)

Public defender Jasmyn Williams has just moved to Liberty, a Los Angeles suburb alive with Black culture, in the bestselling Jamaican-American writer Nicola Yoon’s novel.

With its grand museum, peaceful streets and luxurious wellness centre, Liberty seems to deliver on its promise of utopian living. But Williams soon discovers a community fixated on self-care, raising questions about the price of living in such a bubble.

What does it really take to pursue lives of such relaxation? Watch out for broader themes of systemic racism, surveillance and the hidden costs of a realised utopia.

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Memories fade, reality begins to blur: Rouge (2023)

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“We smile while our faces burn, we love it so. Because we know magic is happening, just like in a fairy tale.”

By the time these words are spoken by the book’s protagonist, the skincare-obsessed shop girl Mirabelle Nour, she has already been ensnared by the cult-like La Maison de Méduse spa and its promise of ageless beauty.

Nour only begins to visit after the mysterious death of her mother, who was a lifelong client. She now wants the treatments and lotions that kept her mother so youthful. She keeps returning for them, even as her memories fade and reality begins to blur.

A marvellous work by the Canadian Mona Awad.

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How far would you go to ‘matter’?: Natural Beauty (2023)

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What is dark wellness without a bit of body horror?

Natural Beauty, the debut novel by violinist and writer Ling Ling Huang, won a Lambda Literary Award and was longlisted for a PEN / Hemingway prize. In it, the unnamed protagonist, a piano prodigy and the child of Chinese immigrants, sacrifices music to work at a wellness store, in order to better support her ailing parents.

Despite its appalling treatments, which involve bloodsucking fish and spider silk, the job gives her a sense of belonging to something that “matters”.

Brace for a grisly satire on what it can take to feel significant in America.

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A modern-day miracle: The Museum of Human History (2023)

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Just off the coast of a dystopian city, a biotech company named Genesix is mining rare red algae to develop an anti-ageing treatment. Their first few experiments fail. A cloned mammoth and the first human patient both die.

Then an eight-year-old ingests the algae while drowning, and shows the company another way forward. For 25 years, the child remains in a coma — but does not age.

Is this what a modern-day miracle would need to look like, asks author Rebekah Bergman.

The book won a Philip K Dick special citation in 2024.

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A forced mission: The Goddess Effect (2022)

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Anita, an Indian-American new to Los Angeles, signs up at a fitness studio that promises renewed purpose. The Goddess Effect is run by lifestyle guru Venus, and she does provide Anita with direction. But that’s not all she gives her; and her fee isn’t all she wants to take.

Anita soon realises the studio is using mysterious and invasive treatments to enhance the bodies and lives of its premium members.

This creepy adventure by Sheila Yasmin Marikar explores the blurred boundaries between empowerment and subjugation, within the cult-like milieus of certain parts of the wellness industry.