Aesthetica

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.


Genre: Mystery

"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

"Allie Rowbottom is a ruthless, incisive, and painfully human chronicler of how modern technology mediates every interaction, and throws up invisible walls to connection, amplifying and dulling every desire, and every harm. Never have I read a book like hers, that captures so perfectly the feeling that our phones have become an extra limb, and tracks their emotional consequences so acutely through such a universal story. This novel is a feminist communique written on the edge of almost-oblivion - in emojis, stitches, and pills - for every woman who's tried to save another, wishing she could force love into her. It's written like a psychological thriller. My heart was beating in my throat on every page." - Sarah Gerard

"A gothic twist on the contemporary woman's life. Immersive, wicked, and so much fun. Allie Rowbottom is the only writer that should be writing on this era of Instagram and Influencers." - Marlowe Granados

"In her dark, moving, fascinating, and healing first novel, Allie Rowbottom compassionately and lucidly examines one of the more painful, disturbing, stranger, and newest subcultures that our misogynist dominator society has produced." - Tao Lin

"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

"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