Die Hot With A Vengeance

Now available from Dey Street & Harper Collins

Journalist and former Allure beauty editor Sable Yong debuts with a sharp-toothed and hilarious essay collection about beauty and vanity, examining their stigmatization in the cultural zeitgeist, and how to shift focus to use both as powerful tools for self-exploration, interpersonal connection, and cultural change.

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❤️‍🔥

Available Now ❤️‍🔥

“A vibrant essay collection about beauty, identity, and cultural acceptance. Yong’s take on beauty and fashion is revealing, playful, and heartfelt.”

— Starred Kirkus Review


“[C]harmingly subversive and often hilarious... Yong's essays are a compassionate reminder that there are no absolute rules when it comes to beauty, and at the end of the day it truly is an inside job.”

Shelf Awareness


“What is beauty? As Yong, a former magazine editor, argues in this wickedly smart essay collection, the very idea is a moving target. Humor, well-deployed here, may well be the best way to counter the oppressive beauty standards we all face.”

—Boston Globe

"A must-read for anyone who has felt the tension between the beauty industry’s ability to simultaneously exploit and empower, Die Hot with a Vengeance eviscerates the manipulative aspects of Big Beauty without shaming those who love what beauty practices can offer."

— Ling Ling Huang, author of Natural Beauty

“Throughout Die Hot With A Vengeance, Yong emphasizes the practicalities of beauty, because in the end beauty is not a moral imperative, not a rulebook, not a winner-takes-all competition. It should be whimsical, personal, and never anchored to just one ideal, much like this book itself.”

 –The Brooklyn Rail

“Yong’s debut collection of essays, Die Hot with a Vengeance, is such a treat because Yong—both in conversation and as a writer—is always down to get deep. Tough topics become tender and human in her hands.”

—W Magazine

“With her debut essay collection, Yong looks to understand why vanity is still such a dirty word in a culture so obsessed with beauty. The former Allure editor offers thought-provoking analysis on social media’s impossible beauty standards, the rise of questionable wellness trends, and whether blondes really do have more fun. Going beyond just sharing her insights from working in the industry, she also weaves in stories of her own complicated relationship with self-image. With humor and candor, Die Hot With a Vengeance shows why beauty should be a tool of self-expression, not self-hate.”

TIME Magazine


About Sable Yong

Beauty writer, ugly cryer, website haver.

Sable Yong is a writer from New York. Former Allure editor and beauty & culture writer for the past dozen years, her work can be read in Allure, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Grazia, Glamour, Nylon, The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Guardian, GQ, and more.

She writes the newsletter 💌Hard Feelings💌 and hosts the podcast 🌹Smell Ya Later🥀 about all things smell and scent-related.

Die Hot With A Vengeance is her first essay collection.