I will rate Size Zero by Abigall Mangin a 2/5 stars. The cover and excerpt were the reason I wanted to give this book a try, but after the first chapter (excerpt) the book lost its creative zest. It became weird and uninteresting. The dialogue is very bland. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book, unfortunately I will not be able to recommend it.

With thanks to netgalley and Visage media

Size Zero is a very strange thriller that I couldn't really get into and didn't manage to finish..

I found this book very dark and disturbing. We all know that the high fashion industry is grim, with possibly anorexic models, lots of drug use and very little food, but this book takes it to the extremes. Anorexia is the least of the girls' problems, there is much, much more harm that the model agencies can - and will do.

It was a different type of book for me. I don't think I'll be reading more in the series.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I read an advance copy of the book. This review is voluntary, honest and my own opinion

First things first can we just look at how stunning this cover is? I was completely drawn in by it and decided I wanted to read it just by that.
So before reading the book i wasnt sure what to expect to be honest as the synopsis is a little crazy, but it ended up being pretty good. Its dark and gives a very blunt look into the seedy, negative parts of the high fashion industry so much so that it had me wondering how exaggerated or true to point it was. And although it did have it's funny moments it was more in a slightly ridiculous way.

It was very descriptive, which really helped with picturing the scenes from the decadent and luxurious to the dingy and grimey. But I did find sometimes it went a bit too far where it wasn't needed.

Being part of a crime series I was expecting it to be a bit more fast paced and maybe to get my heart racing but it didn't quite fully get there for me and I found it a little slow in places. Saying that it did have twists and turns and had me trying to guess where it was going and gave me quite a lot to think about. If this is to be part of a series id be interested in seeing where Mangin goes next.

Trigger warnings - anorexia, child sexual abuse and sex trafficking.

Thank you NetGalley and Visage Media for the eARC in return for an honest review.

I love thrillers, but I think that the satire part was what lost me. The characters felt pretty one-dimensional and the scenes jumped around quickly at times which got me confused trying to keep the plotline straight in my head. Might have also appreciated a trigger warning because I didn't know how dark it was going to be on the subjects of sexualization and eating disorders. Entertaining nonetheless!

If you've ever wondered just how dark the fashion industry is, then this is the book for you! When I say dark, I mean dark. That cover should give you a clue: there's glitter but there is pitch black darness too. Plenty of grim themes here such as self harming and forced prostitution so be warned.

I always find satire novels interesting although I've not read many. You just know that a lot is gleaned from real fact and based or at least inspired by some event. There's a rich and poweful fashion brand but how did it get so famous and rich? There is blood on the hands of those who made it that way.

There is a crime wrapped up in this whole tale but it;s the crime mixed with the satire and the role of the fashion world that provides the most fascinating picture. All together, this is a very rewarding yet depressing read.

It's dark...did i mention that?

I couldn’t get into this book and I’m not sure of the reasons why?! Maybe I’ll give it another go when I’m in a different frame of mind...

When I first picked up this book, I wasn't sure how much I was going to enjoy it because it was written so differently to any book that I had written recently and the subject matter was DARK. I knew going into this book that a woman's skin was used as a haute couture coat on the catwalk (it's in the blurb so not a spoiler) but even that did not prepare me for just how dark this book would be.

Mangin is very passionate about the issues surrounding the fashion industry and has cleverly integrated a wider universe with this book (there is a website mentioned within the book which redirects to a blog about some of the issues). I can only hope that this book has stretched the truth to the extreme but I also know that it has not completely unbelievable.

This book is a thriller filled with intrigue from start to finish and the twists keep coming. It is a relatively long book so it took me around 2 weeks to read (according to my records, 4 of those days I didn't read this book at all so it took 11 days) but found myself falling into reading "just one more chapter".

I am very excited to see what's next from Mangin and hope that we can see more from these characters.

This book was so weird, so strange but actually pretty good!! I wasn't sure I would be able to read it but I persevered and I'm kinda glad I did. Some graphic details included....

Ava, a model, is drugged and sent down the runway wearing a coat made of human skin. The skin appears to belong to a girl who disappeared 10 years earlier. Cecil is the son of the modeling agent and friend of the missing girl (also presumed by everyone to have been her killer years earlier) and joins up with Ava to find Annabelle's real killer. It was a pretty gritty book (obviously: skin coat), mostly because of the abuses of the models and sex trafficking story lines. I kept thinking it was nearly done but I was only at 38% or 45% or something, and while it started out strong, it started to twist and turn too much and seemed to be trying to hard to be shocking. I was disappointed in the ending. Somehow this is part of a series, but I can't see wanting to read the next one unless the plot sounded amazing. 2.5 stars rounded to 3.

So sorry. I think this book has an excellent story struggling to get out from under the heavy blanket of description. Far too many action beats are contradictory in the same sentence, leaving me floundering as to what the character really feels. I'm half way through and forcing myself to finish. But now I've read it's the first of a series so maybe I'll just stop here. Sorry. Can't recommend.

When Ava Germaine stumbles out onto the runway in a coat made of human skin, people freak out and assume it’s the body of Annabelle Leigh, a girl who went missing years before at the age of fourteen. Fingers automatically point to Cecil LeClaire, son of the owner of the infamous LeClaire Modeling Management company, who was suspected of kidnapping and murdering Annabelle from the start. Cecil leaves the monastery that he has made his home and comes back to New York City, determined to find out who is behind this madness taking place in the fashion world.

This book is a thoroughly dark read, and I think that’s a part of why I enjoyed it so much. It was full of dark humor and horrifying actions taking place the fashion industry, and every page was intense. The flaws that made up each character were so interesting to read about, and I loved watching every piece of the story fit together between the plot and the characters. The imagery was so vivid, and I could picture the story play out in my head as I read along.

Size Zero by Abigail Mangin is most definitely not an easy book to read, but I really enjoyed it and would love to see more!

*Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for a review!*

It started off very campy and fun, but ultimately lost steam about 1/3 of the way in. It end up on the wrong side of magical and was outlandish. The plot was hard to follow, it was written like it should’ve been a movie. It was supremely overwritten...soooo so many words to say sooooo so little. This had the potential to make a statement, and it tried, but I think it failed.

First, I want to truly thank Net Galley and Visage Media for the ARC of A Size Zero in exchange for my unbiased review.

Size Zero is written in a style modeling (pun intended) the avant-garde subject it is portraying—extravagant and absurd. The satirical and exaggerated story is so unique from anything I have ever read. However, it’s certainly not for the faint at heart. It’s very graphic and the subject matter is tough. I mean, a woman is walking down a runway in a suit made completely out of a human carcass within the first few chapters. There were quite a few times throughout the book I actually had to take a break from reading and come back to it later. If you have a dry sense of humor and find satire funny, I would highly recommend this book. If you are squeamish or your sense of humor isn’t that dark, you may want to look for something else.

I’m giving four stars with the disclaimer that this won’t be for everyone. I enjoyed it, thought it was very well-written and give props to it being so unique.

Also, I want to add that I don’t think I ever have EVER been so completely shocked by and drawn to a book cover as I have with Size Zero’s cover. It is perplexing and strange.. which fits, because this is exactly how I would describe Size Zero itself.

Trigger warnings: physical and sexual abuse and graphic imagery.

I've struggled greatly about how to properly phrase my review. For this was, in my opinion, a disaster. This is a new debut author. I always love reading new authors and I want them to succeed. Unfortunately, I can't say anything significant in support of this new effort. I was very close to a DNF. I did start skipping several sections and was able to make it to the end. I think there were multiple problems. The biggest being the author tried much too hard. It was evident in the writing, in the overly dramatic descriptions that overtook the entire book, in the overdone characters that still lacked any substance and the pushed jokes that never seemed to catch a laugh. I have read a few other reviews that have praised this novel. I could be entirely wrong in my opinion. I simply struggled to just want to turn the page after a while. It was not pleasant. I wish the author the best and I hope they improve. This was in my honest opinion just not a good reader experience.

*Thank you to Visage Media via NetGalley for the digital review copy.

This book is a scream. In many ways. First of all, it’s not for everyone - it’s well-suited for you if you enjoy social satire and think a corpse being modeled on the runway of New York Fashion Week is hilarious. (Guilty.) It also helps if you like monks who love Flashdance. You’ll also have to be aware of, or at least open to, the many awful things that can happen to young people who come to New York to be models, and the general horrors of New York excess. As you may have gathered, this book is not like anything else you will read anytime soon. It is basically American Psycho with a social conscience..

I really enjoyed that this book has something to say and never tries to tippy toe around the horrifying issues it tackles. It is wickedly funny but also very sad. It can be hard to read at times but is always fascinating. (It is really hard to discuss this book without giving any spoilers.) The book reminds me a bit of the literary influences it nods to: Bret Easton Ellis, Edgar Allen Poe - but like Glamorama or American Psycho, it is really more of a satire than a traditional horror novel or murder mystery a la Poe. Also, it is the opposite of many current horror novels that glamorize and specialize the murders of young girls a la Lolita (to which this book also explicitly refers). Never titillating - It is grotesque throughout and I mean that as a compliment. I did feel it went on a little too long before the mystery was fully solved — I probably only felt this way bc the issues are so hard to read about at this level of horror and the author did such a good job of making you confront them.

All of this makes for a totally different and bizarre reading experience, in a good and rather enlightening way. The ending is great. This book appears to be first in a series and I will definitely read the next one. (As a side note, the cover is a perfect depiction of the book.)

Also, I tend to roll my eyes at “trigger warnings” but in the case of this book there are a couple of issues the reader should really be prepared to have the stomach to deal with in a major way, particularly child sexual abuse, sex trafficking and anorexia. (But know these issues are never glamorized - quite the opposite.)

Four weirded-out and impressed stars. This author is truly original and different and tackles very ambitious ideas that are tough to read about, but somehow also makes them funny at times. I’m interested to see what she comes up with next.

Thanks to NetGalley, Abigail Mangin and Visage Media for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

What a cover! Firs thing that catch my eyes. The book was also an entertaining read that I enjoy doing! Good pick!

Once, when I was younger, I got a couple calls from a modeling agency in my hometown called PMS. I didn’t take them up on it, I thought it was a little strange. Came out of nowhere. Still, even though I had declined the offer it felt nice to have some place that supposedly recruited beautiful girls to tell me, a 13-year-old with pretty heavy self-esteem issues, that I was worthy of being considered for such a job. But, to be honest, I always kind of feared it would be like the modeling world of Abigail Mangin’s Size Zero.

Size Zero is horrifically comic satire at its best. I knew from page one that I was reading something intended to put the reader on edge. Parents desperate for money sell their children to men. Pack them a bag and send them off, never to return. The girls are sold dreams of fashion modeling and travel beyond their wildest dreams. Then, they’re promptly thrust into the high stakes world of high fashion. When the childhood friend of a prominent designer’s son goes missing and turns up as a skin suit on the runway years later, he decides to reenter the world he’d abandoned for monastic life and track down her murderer.

Abigail Mangin is a craftsman of pitch black humor. I found myself laughing at almost every page, even as I was disgusted by her vivid imagery of the modeling world’s underbelly. She knows how to skewer and twist those parts of society we’d rather not think about and turn them to the light. A not-so-distant future of high-tech high fashion and all the things about the elite world we don’t want to believe are happening, the world of Size Zero is sharply crafted and unforgiving. There is no mercy here, even as you laugh your way down. Its dark, sensual, vicious prose slides across the page like oil and bites.

I didn’t originally realize it was first in a series. It twists back on itself so effectively I wasn’t sure where it had left to go. Nevertheless, I’d follow Abigail Mangin into the depths of Hades if she guided. I can’t wait to see where this elite, morally complex, privileged beasts of humanity go next.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Visage Media, and Abigail Mangin for the opportunity to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Very unique book, nothing i have read quit like it. Very easy to read and will be looking forward for more like this to come.

This book is exactly like the cover - luxurious, a little beautiful, and also very very dark.

I personally have not read satire/crime before this one so this was an interesting experience. The story was told from a third-person perspective, the majority of it in Cecil LeClaire's POV. The LeClaires were behind the wealth and success of Visage, a luxury fashion brand. When a body turned up in the fashion runway, Cecil begun to unravel the truth about the industry his family owned as he tried to find the culprit alongside an unexpected ally. There was not much background on him before entering the monastery but his efforts to be a better person were admirable, and at times, brave. He's humble and determined and possibly my favourite character because he's just so sweet?? Much unlike the rest of his family - Margaux and Perdonna, he treated everyone like a human being.

Size Zero was not what I expected it to be. It was at a certain point when I realised this was by no means just a crime novel. The book tackled sensitive themes that at parts, were hard to digest. Mangin had crafted a world believable enough in today's era that it skittered along the edge of the fiction tag. It was an eye opener, and a reminder, where it isn't that individuals are flawed, but we lived in a judgemental society that made us believe it ourselves.

The luxury was a little overwhelming, much in contrast to the horror that was almost subtle. There were times I focused heavily on the lavish descriptions and nearly overlooked at how horrifying the industry was beneath the diamonds, silk, and glitter, much like how the public in the story was unaware of what Visage was built on.

There's a nice blend of twists, humor and complex characters here. It's nothing that I've read before and by no means a light hearted book. Please note the trigger warnings if you do decide to read it.

Trigger warnings: rape, sexual/physical abuse, self harm, emotional abuse, eating disorders, forced prostitution