sophiainreview

[sophiainreview]

Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica in Review

When I picked up Aesthetica from its spotlight on the community library shelf, emblazoned with NPR and New York Times reviews praising its wit and commentary, I briefly fancied myself adult. Clever, maybe. Finally, basking in the dawn of my 20s, wise. Or at least, intelligent enough to finally pick up a thought-provoking book to mark the rebirth of the bookworm I used to be. Without much thought, I checked out this book and took it home.

I read it in one sitting tonight, and I have some thoughts. As a heads up, this book contains the following: TW: mentions of SA, addiction and self-harm, domestic abuse

I do not use specific language to describe any events within the book but please keep in mind that if any of these topics make you feel unwell, you have been cautioned about reading ahead (and remember: the book is GRAPHIC in its descriptions).

The story is structured in flashbacks, flipping between child Anna, 19-year-old beauty influencer Anna, and the 35-year-old Anna with nothing to her name but regret. Thirsting for fame, teen Anna flies to LA to meet a man that can make her a famous influencer. She gives up her body and autonomy to gain a sense of control over him, naively assuming that being an object of a man's lust gives a woman power over him. We see her proved wrong.

As an adult, she is haunted by the ghosts of herself as she navigates addiction, grief, dysmorphia, loss, and the happy Instagram stories of the man who stole her future. Flitting between her glimpses of her life, Rowbottom slowly builds an image of Anna's true experiences and self. As The New York Times so aptly describes on the back cover,

"Rowbottom's buzzy and exacting vocabulary evokes a picture already resting in our minds and on our newsfeeds." - The New York Times Book Review

And this is precisely why I regret reading the entire book.

This book is violence and rage. It is emotional gunk, second-hand baggage, silt settling in the lungs, sitting heavy after you breath it all in. The characters are ugly and raw and critically flawed, explicitly written; nothing like the polished characters from the games and movies and media I've consumed in escapism from the last 10 years. Gender violence, power imbalance, vacant narcissism and underpinning it all, a desperate bid for connection.

Maybe it's because I see too much of my child self in the childhood self of the protagonist, or maybe it's because the violence Anna experiences as a teenager and as an older woman are experiences I've come to understand and experience myself. The social standards, the addiction, the parasociality, the violence violence violence.

The bids for connection were particularly hard for me to read; I see myself in Anna in these moments. The odd and unlabeled love and betrayal she feels for her childhood friend, an ally and lover in girlhood, estranged in adulthood. The hypersexuality and covetous dysmorphia of the physical (not mental) transition from girlhood to womanhood in the context of the 2000s. In the real world, it seems like these experiences go unspoken about. People my age look back on their childhoods, talking about the sports, the parks, the camping trips and makeup experiments. The early memes and rise of YouTube. Never the stolen roleplay kisses between girls and glorification of male violence, the recitals for our roles as objects, the primping and preparing to be destroyed. And our mothers' cautioning words, falling on deaf ears.

I regret reading this book, but you may not. As I told my friends and family as soon as I read that last page: it's ass. But it is exceptionally well-written even if I disliked it entirely. I did have to send my mom an "I love you" message immediately after, and my cry sesh is scheduled for the moment I post this review. Perhaps the best takeaway from this book is that womanhood is a performance, as much as sisterhood is in our blood. Take good care of the women in your life, and tell your mom and friends that you love hem. I give this book a 4/10, and only that high because it speaks to some of my own childhood and teenage experiences and hopefully someone out there can understand it for what it is. :/

Regards,

Sophia in Review