At nineteen, she was an Instagram celebrity. Now, at thirty-five, 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.
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Allie Rowbottom received her BA from New York University, her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and her PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Houston. Her work has received scholarships, essay prizes, and honorable mentions from Tin House, Inprint, the Best American Essays series, the Florida Review, Bellingham Review, Black Warrior Review, Southampton Review, and Hunger Mountain.
Chelsea Stephens is an experienced voice actor with a talent for mystery, sci-fi, and YA novels. She won an AudioFile Earphones Award for her narration of Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter. She has a longtime love and appreciation for the performing arts, with experience in onstage acting, singing, and voice-over. Her love for reading books and the pursuit of the story led her to narration. She enjoys unfolding characters and bringing listeners into new worlds.