Aesthetica

Allie Rowbottom

eAudio - 2022

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 d...own 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. more