Rating: 
Summary: depressing but necessary knowledge
Review: This book, basically, reinforces what most of us already know. That the world revolves around the beautiful, that the better looking you are, the more successful you're going to be, and the uglier you are, the higher chance that you're going to be working at McDonald's for the rest of you're life. But more depressing than these facts alone is the phenomena of a higher incidence of child abuse against children that are less than pleasing to the eye. Is this how evolved people are? Apparently so, if we still assume that the beautiful are intrinsically good and the the ugly are intrinsically evil.
Rating:
Summary: enlightening and depressing
Review: fascinating and true, except marilyn monroe and elizabeth taylor do NOT look exactly the same with different colouring.
Rating: 
Summary: Good
Review: This book is readable and interesting. I recall a "20/20" program where they put hidden cameras on a man and woman who were beautiful, and on a man and woman who were plain, and sent them out for job interviews WITH THE SAME RESUMES. The attractive man and woman got MANY more job offers than the plain pair. And these were not fashion-model jobs, but stock-brokerages etc., I used to work in a plastic surgeon's office. One woman brought her baby in to have a cleft-lip repaired. The mother used to sit and read magazines in the waiting room while the baby cried next to her. After the baby's lip was fixed, and he now looked like a normal baby, that mother never touched a magazine in the waiting room, but cooed and cuddled him the whole wait. BUT if looks were everything, how come John Lennon and Paul McCartney both in 1969--when John and Paul were arguably the most desirable men on the planet--married Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney?! Yoko and Linda were not that attractive!! But they snared two Beatles. I mean, I'm a nobody, and I don't think I'D even go out with Yoko or Linda. To each his own! So looks matter, but they ain't everything. Anyway, this book delves into the appearance aspect of our species in an accessible manner, and I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: good stuff
Review: I've always been into evolutionary studies, and this book is a nice addition to the that field. It helps to explain why women do strange things like wear high heels or "exfoliate". This book won't make many feminists happy, which may be as good a reason as any to read it -- it provides much information to use when contemplating if beauty should be used as a source of power, something feminsts seem to be reluctant to embrace. Read it. Particularly if you enjoyed learning Darwinism.
Rating:
Summary: MAGNIFICENT!
Review: I LOVED!!!!!!!!!!!! this book. It is wonderful I reccomend it to anyone
Rating: 
Summary: not bad
Review: Usually this subject is very interesting to me, and while I did learn a few interesting facts, there was no way I could read through the whole thing. I think this book would be great for anyone who is writing a report because it is an easy read. It just seemed to get slightly redundant about 1/3 the way through. However, it looks great on the coffetable and is always a good conversation starter.
Rating:
Summary: Good read but does not solve the mystery
Review: 'The Survival of the Prettiest' is a thrilling read if you are secretly fed-up of feminist bleating about beauty being completely in the eye of the beholder. I was not offended because I really don't think it is that serious as science. Etcoff is careful to mention personality and intelligence as factors that do attract people when it comes to choosing a long-term mate. However, I agree with the reviewers who talk about the naivety and arrogance of the sociobiological position in general. Etcoff seems to suggest (perhaps being deliberately provocative) that men will select women who look like x and have waist-to-hip ratio y etc. because this will be better for reproduction. I have yet to meet a man who goes around looking at women in the street and attempting accurate measurement, and then saying 'oh, not quite the best ratio for reproduction'! It would be funny to see what sort of review (if any) the book got from men's magazines. In all, her book is an amusing and fascinating read, but because of its sociobiological underpinning does not account for subjective cultural tastes that human beings have with regards to beauty (e.g.what is attractive about 'pre-Raphaelite women', and what about non-white women; most of the world's population is not white. How do people pass as beautiful even though they cover up their defects, etc. now that would be a more human book to write. Dishing up a lot of evolutionary science is interesting, but it is utterly incapable of penetrating the mystery of beauty. As a woman I've always been genuinely puzzled when people get called beautiful, and never worked out why. I'm sure lots of those people do not meet the sociobiological vital statistics! Perhaps leaving the mystery unsolved is best. It is attempting to solve it fully that is dangerous [....]
Rating:
Summary: Interesting review and scientific findings on Beauty
Review: Found the reading extremely interesting. No one has ever presented in such detail with scientific research about human fascination with Beauty. Its one of those human characteristics that is so often ignored by scientific researchers and yet is playing on our minds 24x7.
Rating:
Summary: A book which will probably survive OK...
Review: This is a pretty decent book but not extraordinary. It brings together many of the current observations relating to beauty (especially the female variety) but is not overly scientific -- i.e., it doesn't get bogged down in technicalities or jargon. Similarly, it relies on a Darwinian framework for interpretation but is not overly adamant about ev-psych's ability to explain everything about human behavior. I especially liked the first chapter, which reads more like an essay on beauty past and present than an intro to a science book. If there was any complaint, it was that the author wasn't daring enough and doesn't introduce any really breathtakingly new ideas. I got the impression she was mainly reporting on others' research, and I think Etcoff missed (in the next-to-last chapter) the interesting fact that in the last decade (or so) fashion seems to have flowed from the lower classes upwards, whereas throughout the rest of history it's been the other way, which is sort of what she presumes to still be the case. This doesn't detract seriously from the earlier material, which showed a touch more originality of approach. An interesting topic pretty well-covered, even if not ground-breaking in any way.
Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: Having always been curious as to why the world is crazy about beauty, I found Nancy Etcoff's account of beauty to be entertaining yet educational. If you are perplexed as to why men preffer blonds, or why cosmetic companies thriving. Read this book.
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