PositiveKQEDThe work of a gifted writer who understands love bonds, family, death and inevitability, but also has a sense of humor about all of the above. Blackburn’s novel presents grief as memory puzzle, grief as creative license, grief as fuel for delusion and awakening.
Allie Rowbottom
RaveKQEDThe book moves fluidly between Anna’s last year as a teen and her present day, on the eve of surgery ... In a simpler novel, this would be the impetus for a standard but thin revenge narrative: A woman goes after the man who wronged her and gets a happy ending. But Rowbottom’s writing is more complex, less obvious and in accordance with Wes Craven’s ideology of horror: \'Horror films don’t create fear, they release it\' ... Rowbottom releases fear into her novel using tried and true horror notes. Not cheap jump scares, but haunting ambiguity, psychological turmoil, the slow buildup and unfolding of information around the incident. This way of building up terror is horrendously effective. As I read, I felt uneasy, waiting for more information but also afraid to receive it ... This is what makes the book work so well: There are several undercurrents allowed to throb simultaneously ... Rowbottom’s writing is not some cliché-ridden, girl-power critique of the global beauty industry. The industry is such an obvious villain that a moral argument against it would be an easy lay-up. Aesthetica’s appeal is that it is difficult. It doesn’t critique Anna. Neither her desire nor her regret are pathologized, simply explored. Aesthetica is concerned with showing you who the characters are, how they rub against each other, how their lives and purposes bleed into each other and create mess. It is interested in that mess and contradiction ... works because Rowbottom sees and understands the whole iceberg, or in this case, the whole wheel.
Chelsea Martin
RaveKQEDThis cramped time frame lends the novel a richly claustrophobic atmosphere ... Joey will be relatable to readers who’ve visited art galleries and felt too afraid to ask whether the fire extinguisher is part of the exhibit or just a random object in the building ... Martin excels at seeing beauty in the mundane ... What makes Joey’s journey immensely readable is Martin’s obvious empathy for her protagonist and for the act of creation.
