What is perhaps most disturbing about Reed's cautionary tale of the pursuit of phyisical perfect gone awry is not the horrific ends to which her characters go to appease the insatiable god that stares back at them from the mirror every morning, but rather, that no matter how outrageous the plot becomes, no matter how wild her characters' acts of good or evil may appear, we never have to work too hard to believe what's going on.By turns dramatic, hilarious, ghastly and gripping, a kind of suburban magical realism runs through Reed's pages like blood, infusing the story with both the intimate and the fantastic while she slices into our egos like a knife so sharp you don't know you've been cut till you hit the floor.One of those rare books that will surprise both an author's veteran fans and those just discovering her, Thinner Than Thou is a must-have with an epilogue written on the happy meal boxes and weight-loss pill bottles of an entire nation.