A near-future novel about May, a recently unemployed mother who undergoes an experimental cosmetic procedure to make herself unrecognisable to surveillance systems.

The world around her is hot, automated, screen-sick, corporatised, and collapsing; the family is strapped for money; the children are absorbed by devices; the city offers convenience and dread in roughly equal portions. So, naturally, the solution is to alter your face and take the kids to a botanical garden. Seems reasonable. Nothing ominous there.

The book moves through AI, motherhood, debt, climate anxiety, biometric surveillance, bodies, screens, labour, shopping, childcare, and the modern feeling that every system designed to help you is also recording you, pricing you, and waiting for you to slip. A good one for readers of Ling Ma, Alexandra Kleeman, Patricia Lockwood’s tech dread, Jenny Offill, Emily St. John Mandel, and contemporary fiction about motherhood under late-capitalist conditions.

First UK edition paperback published by Atlantic Books in 2024, with full number line. First published in the United States by Marysue Rucci Books / Simon & Schuster in 2024. Good second-hand condition, with light handling and shelfwear.