[Photo provided to China Daily]

If I had your face

Frances Cha's debut novel is set in contemporary South Korea, where it's estimated that one in three women have plastic surgery before the age of 30. Cha uses this reality to portray the tale of four young women from the same apartment block who strive to "beautify" themselves in the hopes of getting ahead. Along the way, the women nurture a strength, spirit and resilience from the friendship they develop, but the results of their "makeovers" meet with mixed success – or a lack of it. It's an eye-opening depiction of Korean society and its deep-seated inequalities, but one which Cha, a former Seoul-based travel and culture editor for CNN, tells with vigour and panache.