Critics' Opinion:
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Published Nov 2022
264 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In a debut novel as radiant as it is caustic, a former influencer confronts her past - and takes inventory of the damages that underpin the surface-glamour of social media.
At 19, she was an Instagram celebrity. Now, at 35, she works behind the cosmetic counter at the "black and white store," peddling anti-aging products to women seeking physical and spiritual transformation. She too is seeking rebirth. She's about to undergo the high-risk, elective surgery Aesthetica™, a procedure that will reverse all her past plastic surgery procedures, returning her, she hopes, to a truer self. Provided she survives the knife.
But on the eve of the surgery, her traumatic past resurfaces when she is asked to participate in the public takedown of her former manager/boyfriend, who has rebranded himself as a paragon of "woke" masculinity in the post-#MeToo world. With the hours ticking down to her surgery, she must confront the ugly truth about her experiences on and off the Instagram grid.
Propulsive, dark, and moving, Aesthetica is a Veronica for the age of "Instagram face," delivering a fresh, nuanced examination of feminism, #MeToo, and mother-daughter relationships, all while confronting our collective addiction to followers, filters, and faux realities.
"[C]omplex and deeply engaging...[A] scorching commentary on society's blindness toward female pain. Fans of Mary Gaitskill's work and Black Mirror will flock to this pitch-perfect novel." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Rowbottom's prose moves back and forth from striking imagery to staccato simplicity...which gives it an entrancing quality, like the best social media algorithms. While structurally the novel is conventional, tracking a naïve young woman's entrapment in a sordid world and her reawakening as an adult, Rowbottom's specificity about one moment in internet culture and the contradictory ideologies about autonomy and desire young women must parse make it worthwhile reading. A challenging, compassionate novel about the aftermath of exploitation and packaged youth." - Kirkus Reviews
"Rowbottom's focus on second chances, true love, and self-awareness rings true as she calls out the image making and image makers of social media, and readers of a broad range of contemporary fiction will enjoy. Highly recommended." - Library Journal
"Rowbottom's tale offers a piercing look at the reality behind the glamorous life Instagram influencers allegedly lead." - Booklist
"An introspective novel wherein fame is fleeting and power must come from within." - Foreword Reviews
"Propulsive, poetic, and addictive as hell, Aesthetica is a wholly original look not only into the world of social media influencers, but into the lives beyond the squares that are devastatingly rich in heart, depth, and ultimately, redemption. Allie Rowbottom writes like a wizard and I kept asking myself, how is she doing it? By the end, I knew only this: No one could write this book without staring down the world, really seeing it, all of it, the ugly and the strange, the blinding and gorgeous bits, and not once looking away. This book doesn't look away. It doesn't flinch. I'll remember it forever." - Chelsea Bieker, author of Godshot and Heartbroke
"Allie's writing is a light to follow in the dark, illuminating those human realities we often wish would stay hidden, but deep down, if we're open enough, are grateful to have seen all the same. I'm thrilled she wrote this story of discovery and self in the time of social media." - Dantiel W. Moniz, author of Milk Blood Heat
"Nobody investigates the relationship between surface and self like Allie Rowbottom. Full of biting observations and stunningly beautiful prose, Aesthetica is poetic and singular—an unforgettable novel about power and loneliness, mothers and daughters, self-destruction and self-preservation." - Kimberly King Parsons, author of the National Book Award–longlisted Black Light
This information about Aesthetica was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Allie Rowbottom is the author of the memoir Jell-O Girls, a New York Times Editors' Choice Selection, Amazon Best Book of the Month, Indie Next Pick, and Real Simple Best Book of the year. Allie's essays and short fiction can be found in Vanity Fair, Salon, Lit Hub, No Tokens, NY Tyrant, The Drunken Canal, Alta Journal, Bitch, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the writer Jon Lindsey.
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