Dan Wells

Dan Well's Extreme Makeover is a satirical new suspense about a health and beauty company that accidentally develops a hand lotion that can overwrite your DNA. Lyle Fontanelle is the chief scientist for NewYew, a health and beauty company experimenting with a new, anti-aging hand lotion. As more and more anomalies crop up in testing, Lyle realizes that the lotion's formula has somehow gone horribly wrong. It is actively overwriting the DNA of anyone who uses it, turning them into physical clones of someone else. Lyle wants to destroy the formula, but NewYew thinks it might be the greatest beauty product ever designed--and the world's governments think it's the greatest weapon. New York Times bestselling author Dan Wells brings us a gripping corporate satire about a health and beauty company that could destroy the world in Extreme Makeover.

A Novel

Extreme Makeover

Bryan

I was intrigued and eager to dive into the book. The synopsis promised an engaging and unique story, and I was excited to see where the author would take it.

However, as I began reading, I quickly realized that the book was plagued by padding and unnecessary details that did little to advance the plot. Instead of adding depth or complexity to the story, these extraneous details served only to prolong the reading experience without any real payoff.

Despite this flaw, the book did have some interesting elements that kept me engaged. However, the overall time-consuming nature of the padded narrative made it a less enjoyable read than it could have been.

In short, while "Extreme Makeover" had a cool concept and a nice synopsis, the excessive padding and lack of payoff made it a less than ideal reading experience. It was an interesting read, but ultimately felt like a time-consuming and somewhat disappointing endeavor.

- To the Author -
I do believe that you have a lot of potential as a writer and I would encourage you to continue pursuing your passion. However, I would also suggest that you work on avoiding the temptation to bloat your stories with unnecessary details that do little to advance the plot.

I believe that, with some focus on concise storytelling and a willingness to edit out extraneous elements, you have the potential to create truly engaging and memorable works of fiction. I hope that you will take this feedback to heart and continue to grow as a writer.

This book is too long and needed to be re-plotted. The idea was good, but the pacing was horribly off and the conversations between characters quickly grew tedious, as no one ever did anything while talking. It could have easily been halved and become a better book. The author mentioned chopping a whopping 70k words in editing and still ended up like this.

I think a lot of things that could have been described in the moment instead had these weird, setting up scenes when we really didn't need them. It also left so many questions and plot holes in the science being used for it to make sense. 

And I think that it would have been easier to suspend the disbelief if it were shorter and skipped over some things. Like maybe Lyle should have actually teamed up with some of these meandering plot points, or they should have intersected more and some of the smaller plotlines could have been cut.

I also really didnt like how the ACLU was being portrayed, how Celiacs disease was handled (which made it sound like a debilitating disease when you just need to avoid gluten and you're fine) and how women were handled. I have never spent 15k on beauty products in a year. I assume the quote in the easily cuttable promotional pitch was exaggerated for effect, but still. Took me right out of the book since I laughed. 😂

It is easily readable, and it is a debut I believe. So hopefully the next book has a better editor!

Extreme Makeover A Novel

Reviews