The Other Profile
A powerful novel that reveals the soft underbelly of Instagram's brand activism
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
A story of conflicted friendship and its unravelling, told against the background of an ever-present, mind-twisting social media verse.
"A truly precious book."—Grazia
Maia is 26. Stuck in a dead-end job and a dysfunctional relationship, she's treading water. Gloria, 18, is an influencer with 2 million followers, and the fragility of those who grow up too fast.
Both are bereft. Maia, of purpose, and of the sister who took her own life, even though they weren't close, and she doesn't miss her. Gloria, of someone to help her grow and become stronger, but also of ideas and words that are truly hers.
When Maia starts working for Gloria, both their lives change forever. The two young women weave a complex, intense relationship. Its yarn will unwind behind the scenes of the virtual world Gloria inhabits, and for the first time both will see themselves as they really are. But in this dangerous game of mirrors, will Maia and Gloria still be able to distinguish what belongs to whom?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist and YouTuber Graziosi's witty and unsettling debut shines an uncompromising light on European influencers. Maia, 26, the novel's caustic narrator, has come undone after the death of her younger sister after a series of mental and physical health problems. Leaving her university classes in Paris, she has moved to Milan with her older boyfriend, a professor who is rapidly losing interest in her. There, a friend asks if she might be interested in working as an image consultant for Gloria, a prominent social media personality who's still in high school. Maia and Gloria become friends of a sort, with the benignly vacuous Gloria pumping Maia for her opinions, and Maia growing accustomed to a life of luxury until a drug-fueled weekend reveals the cracks in their relationship. The lightly sketched plot wobbles at its few moments of consequence, mostly involving Maia's feelings about her sister's death. For the most part, though, Maia's narration remains tartly amusing, full of acid one-liners about the people in this strange new world (Gloria smiles "in every photo as if she has facial paralysis"; another influencer bemoans her white privilege while "brushing away a golden lock from her lips which have been enlarged by injections"). Graziosi's trip down the social media rabbit hole is as glossy and entertaining as it is perceptive.
