Aesthetica

Starred review from August 8, 2022
Rowbottom (Jell-O Girls) delivers a complex and deeply engaging portrayal of a woman looking back on her career as an Instagram model. The narrative fluidly alternates between the near future, when Anna is in her mid-30s, and her rise to influencer status in 2017 at 19. After moving from Houston to Hollywood straight out of high school, she’s quickly scouted by a seedy but famed manager, Jake Alton. Jake and Anna soon begin a sexual relationship that, while consensual, is centered on an uneven power dynamic; he also gives her drugs and talks her into breast implants. At 35, a much-transformed Anna has returned to Hollywood not for a comeback but an undoing. Alone in a hotel room, she drinks wine and pops pills the night before a risky facial procedure called aesthetica, which involves the reversal of her implants and rhinoplasties. “The in-between time,” Anna narrates, “before results are final, is my favorite of any procedure... my body working to heal, my brain acclimating to the bruises and swelling until one day they’re gone and the transformation is complete.” Rowbottom brings as much tension to the story of Jake’s manipulation in Anna’s past as she does to the aesthetica, which Anna knows she might not survive. The subplots are equally rewarding, among them Anna’s inability to save her troubled single mother, and the reappearance of Anna’s childhood best friend, a successful runner who is struggling with anorexia. It all builds to 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. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary.

September 15, 2022
A former Instagram model prepares for a surgery that promises to undo all her previous cosmetic procedures in this dark and poignant debut. Anna is 35, and she has a face she no longer recognizes. After years of fillers and lifts--not all of which have aged well--she has the opportunity to begin aging naturally again if she goes through with the risky Aesthetica(TM) procedure. This surgery has its own artificiality; it won't just remove implants and scar tissue but involves stretching her skin to create the lines that would have presumably formed if Anna hadn't ever used Botox. Whereas her previous cosmetic procedures brought her closer to a symmetrical, consumable Instagram ideal, Aesthetica(TM) can restore Anna's resemblance to her grandmother, a resemblance her mother always cherished. On the eve of the operation, Anna unravels the past that led her here--in particular, the power games and sexual abuse she experienced with her boyfriend and manager, Jake--and the relationships with her mother and her childhood best friend, Leah, she alternately shied away from and chased. Rowbottom's prose moves back and forth from striking imagery to staccato simplicity ("Jake led me through the club, walking with a languid gait, his shoulders rolled back so that his heart looked open and imperiled. We sat at a sticky banquette"), which gives it an entrancing quality, like the best social media algorithms. While structurally the novel is conventional, tracking a na�ve 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.

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October 1, 2022
Rowbottom follows her memoir, Jello Girls (2018), with her first novel, a portrait of an aging Instagram model grappling with the dark side of social media. In 2017, at age 19, Anna left her single mother in Houston to go to Los Angeles with the intention of becoming an Instagram influencer. Showcasing her good looks, she planned to become a beneficiary of the free promotions and lavish parties that are bestowed upon the most successful Instagrammers. Anna drew the attention of Jake, a slick manager who promised to help her ascend. Sixteen years later, Anna is seeking to undo all the plastic surgery Jake convinced her she needed via a procedure known as Aesthetica that is meant to restore clients to their pre-plastic surgery bodies. But Anna must also grapple with the emotional costs of her career: her frayed relationship with her best friend, her mother's health struggles, and the harsh reality of the parties she was invited to attend. Rowbottom's tale offers a piercing look at the reality behind the glamorous life Instagram influencers allegedly lead.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2022

DEBUT Author of the acclaimed memoir Jell-O Girls, about her business-empire family, Rowbottom crafts a stunning debut novel featuring 18-year-old Anna, who wants to be an Instagram star. She has followers but needs an agent to help boost her numbers, so she moves to Los Angeles. There, Instagram star Jake Alton takes her on as a client and a bedfellow, increasing her following significantly. He lures her on a little at a time, suggesting Botox, implants, and nose jobs. Along the way she becomes addicted to the drugs Jake provides. Each of these changes seem to boost her numbers but never propels her into the top tier. A big deal opportunity surfaces and Anna takes the bait, only to discover that her Instagram persona is expected to deliver more than simple influence. This causes her to rethink her goals, and at age 35 she decides to undo all the cosmetic enhancements so she can and live life as her true self. VERDICT 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.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

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