Natasha’s father, an absurdly affluent yet altogether absent Russian oligarch, sends her to an English boarding school attended by other daughters of the elite.

The school is in the grips of an eating disorder epidemic. Natasha and her dormmates goad each other into adopting extreme and nonsensical diets. One dictates they only consume wholemeal bread and Sandwich Spread, a pale gloop that’s ‘English and gross, like cold sick’. Natasha’s friends include Rachel, who has ‘an enormous Roman nose and fuscous moustache she has to wax.’ Bianca is spindly, like a ‘looming skeleton’, and covered in diamonds. Lissa is greasy like she has been smeared with butter.

Scarlett Thomas has a bizarre and trenchant voice that she wields to hilarious effect in this novel. But here lies the problem – as this postmodern black comedy of privileged kids and body shame turns deadly, the characters seem too much like caricatures.

I read Oligarchy alongside Bri Lee’s brilliant new essay about body image, Beauty. Where Lee’s take on body image and eating disorders is clear-eyed and self-scrutinising, this novel is the mad-cap satirical take on the same issue. Both examine how eating disorders can be contagious, but Oligarchy doesn’t seem to extend the same nuance and empathy to those battling body dysmorphia and shame.

Scarlett Thomas is a fabulous writer with a distinctive and daring voice, but something about this satire of self-starving rich girls didn’t hit the mark for me. It is, though, entertainingly contemporary in its references. If the phrases IRL, Azealia Banks and Becky with the Good Hair mean nothing to you, proceed with caution, or at least have urbandictionary.com at the ready.

Reviewed by Angus Dalton