A Plastic Surgery Cruise is an Unsettling But Fun Read
This beach read book is eerily close to reality
No-one thinks about the deaths aboard a cruise, but they happen.
“Not every week. I’m not trying to scare you guys, but a lot of elderly people do come on vacation and then they just, like, pass away in their sleep or something happens,” Zoie shared in a recent TikTok.
Zoie works on the cruise that’s causing a stir online lately: The Royal Caribbean Ultimate World Cruise. It lasts nine-months (long enough for a few deaths) and takes passengers to 60 countries and 11 World Wonders.
But what if the voyage had a different objective? One where the destination wasn’t Brazil or Antarctica, but a brand new body?
And what if the deaths weren’t elderly passing away in the night, but something more sinister?
Pilgrims 2.0 by Lindsey Harding is about just that and it’s the perfect companion read alongside the real life…or maybe I should say reality-show drama of the Royal Caribbean Cruise. Personally, I prefer my drama to be fictional!
Pilgrims 2.0 follows the reinvention of four women as they undergo varying degrees of extreme surgery onboard PILGRIM: a high-tech luxury cruise.
- Bianca, an ex-tennis star, is hoping major internal alterations will help her claw back her youth and her competitive edge, regardless of what that means for her family back home.
- Lyla will undergo a bizarre surgical procedure in a desperate attempt to experience pregnancy.
- Nicole just wants a mommy makeover, hoping to find her confidence, but discovers something far less desirable instead.
- And Annalie, dealing with the pain of losing her identical twin, sets out to erase the permanent reminder in the mirror.
A cruise with plastic surgery options is a not so distant future that’s both disconcerting and fascinating. It’s surprising someone hasn’t done it yet. How hard is it to imagine a Royal Caribbean cruise where the people are aboard for extreme makeovers, instead of likes and follows? They disembark looking younger and shinier than they did nine-months earlier, claiming, “It’s amazing what rest and a bit of sun can do!”
I had to Google ‘plastic surgery cruise’ to make sure it wasn’t already a thing. You can get tooth whitening, derma fillers and Botox on some cruises and there’s a cruise for plastic surgeons, but nothing like the surgery in Pilgrims 2.0 (not yet, anyway).
While it wouldn’t be my ideal trip, PILGRIM does sound like the perfect vacation for its passengers. But as we know, no matter how much money you have to spend on altering your life, there’s no such thing as perfect.
Which brings us back to those deaths. When I picked up Pilgrims 2.0 on a recommendation, I thought I was in for a light chic-lit read and it certainly was a beach read. But then it got, well, creepy (in a good way!).
All the service staff onboard are men, which sounds fine — until you meet Larry. Larry is the smoothest deckman on the ship. Women love him. He entertains them with his flirtatious comments and his attentive service. But Larry is onboard for his own flavour of entertainment. He likes to play small games with the women — harmless pranks, really. A book swapped here, a chai delivered instead of a mocha. An insult disguised in a sugary sweet complement. No harm in that, right? But Larry has another hobby he enjoys even more. He likes to collect mementos from the women onboard and he’ll do anything to grow his collection.
A ship full of vulnerable, drugged, or unconscious women and a sociopath with no boundaries? What could go wrong?
But it’s not just Larry who gives you the creeps. The plastic surgery has its own creep factor.
Do you remember that early 2000s reality show The Swan? Every episode two ‘ugly ducklings’ underwent 3-months of major surgery to compete for a spot in the final Swan beauty pageant. This wasn’t a hair dye and tooth whitening kind of makeover: contestants were unrecognizable by the time they reunited with their tearful families.
The thing was, their families — their husbands and kids — already thought they were beautiful. Most of the women needed help with their self-esteem and confidence, rather than their looks. It made me (and everyone else) feel a bit sick.
The storyline of the show was manipulated, as most reality shows are. One of the writers later admitting: ‘In a pre-interview, I led her husband to say Rachel looks average, but he thought she looked beautiful.’
TV producers thought it would be a crowd favourite, like Extreme Makeover. Instead, it caused outrage and was cancelled.
Most of us find extreme surgery distasteful, even if we’re fascinated by it (why do you think they include those Barbie doll look-a-likes on Botched). It’s bizarre, but we can’t seem to look away.
Maybe it’s the cognitive dissonance we feel? The idea of perfecting our flaws is appealing and we want to say “people can do what they like with their own bodies”, but the extreme end of the scale seems like disturbing voluntary mutilation or, at a minimum, makes us unsettled.
And while we appear to be heading for a future where many humans look more and more fake, AI is generating faces that look completely real. In a recent New York Times story, the majority of readers mislabeled several AI images as real people and several real people as AI. (You can take the test and see how you do. I completely failed with only 3/10 correct.)
It’s hard to know what to think about it all.
Pilgrims 2.0 leaves you wondering where you stand and what’s next for us. With the luxury and drama of a cruise, next-level plastic surgery, and an exceptionally creepy villain, Pilgrims 2.0 has a “can’t look away” effect — unsettling and extreme, but with fictional characters, it’s far more enjoyable.
So grab a copy, get pleasantly unsettled, and discover who survives the cruise.
Kelly has been telling and selling stories for over 15 years. To do the same, grab your free resources here.
