Thirty pages of plastic surgery tales? We wouldn't even expect that much from New Beauty, and those are the glossy pages where a sad story of body dysmorphic disorder skewed with a celebratory slant is most fitted. But we're talking New York Times shopper Alex Kuczynski, whose true-life tome Beauty Junkies hits bookstores in October like a scalpal does the hairline. Kuczynski's story is a common one: Girl goes in for skin therapy; girl walks out with eye lift, collagen injections. plumped lips, and a forehead that even an Upper East Side townhouse explosion couldn't furrow. What social status observing scribe hasn't been in that situation? But Alex learned her lesson: She's quit "beauty treatments" cold turkey, abandoning the hollow world of age upkeep for the hollow world of a Vanity Fair excerpt, coming at you in September.

Face Off [Memo Pad]