Sheer - by Vanessa Lawrence (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Told over nine charged days, Sheer is the gripping tale of a controversial beauty mogul's insatiable ambition and the slippery ground between empowerment and abuse of power.

It's 2015 and Maxine Thomas, the founder and creative director of the cult makeup company Reveal, has just been suspended by her own Board for a scandalous transgression. Housebound in her New York City apartment, where she awaits the verdict on her future, Max recounts her version of the events that have brought her to this moment.

From her start as a precocious suburban child in the eighties to her decades as a workaholic visionary, Max proselytizes a sheer, dewy look--cosmetics through a female gaze--all while battling sexist investors, the whiplash of cultural change, and the mounting pressure to keep her sexuality a secret. But when Max's story catches up to her present, she must contend with the cost of true transparency. Who has she become in her relentless pursuit of success? And what will happen if she loses it all?

Review Quotes

Named Most Anticipated by Bustle, LGBTQ Reads, Autostraddle, Book Riot, and Electric Literature

"Lawrence's clean writing moves the action quickly . . . The book's setting is undeniably compelling, and Lawrence's eye for detail and industry knowledge [...] feel spot-on for the period."
--New York Times Book Review

"Vanessa Lawrence so vividly traces her character's personal history that you might almost forget (like I did!) you're reading a novel, not a memoir."
--Bustle

"Lawrence nails the beauty world and how its trends speak to so many layers of culture, which all makes for a vibrant and sharp read."
--Booklist *starred review*

"Engrossing . . . A well-crafted tale of a striver's fall from grace."
--Publishers Weekly

"Tightly plotted and full of insider detail, the novel shimmers with complicated truths about women, beauty, and betrayal."
--Kirkus

"Vanessa Lawrence's second novel, Sheer takes place over just nine days where Maxine Thomas, the founder of a cult makeup company, is suspended by her own board for a scandal. An investigation to the female gaze, queerness, shifting beauty standards, and the shaky line between empowerment and abuse of power."
--Electric Lit

"Vanessa Lawrence is a marvel. Biting, shocking, illuminating, and whip-smart, her sophomore novel, Sheer, exposes the brutality behind the beauty industry, as it gives us the confession of canceled makeup mogul Maxine Thomas. Maxine bares all, revealing the layered pressures of gender, sexuality, race, and class at play on a made-up face, all the while telling us a gorgeous and unforgettable story. Lawrence pulls it off perfectly: she shows the awful system behind the beautiful woman, then the woman at the heart of the system itself."
--Julia Phillips, bestselling author of Bear and Disappearing Earth

"Incisive and absorbing, Sheer examines the opacity at the heart of capitalist systems, showing us the price of disclosure and ambition. Vanessa Lawrence gives us the indelible narrator Maxine Thomas, a beauty founder whose confessions reveal a dark side of inspiration. I could not turn the pages fast enough."
--Carrie Sun, author of Private Equity

"Sharp and propulsive, Sheer is a morally complex examination of the rise and fall of an innovative beauty founder who has been trained by society to hide her sexuality. At what cost will she hold onto her power? Who is the victim and who is the perpetrator? Through narrator Maxine's confessional tone, Lawrence crafts a compulsively readable story about ambition, beauty, power, and race."
--Crystal Hana Kim, author of The Stone Home

"In Sheer, Vanessa Lawrence gives us something we rarely get to see: a queer point of view on the beauty industry, and on female ambition therein. It's a complicated portrayal of power, desire, and how the two are intensified by an industry with no room for lesbianism, brought to life by a voicey narrator confessing it all. I couldn't read it fast enough."
--Gabrielle Korn, author of Yours for the Taking

About the Author

Vanessa Lawrence is a writer, editor, and native New Yorker. Her debut novel, Ellipses, was named a best book of 2024 by Vogue and a most anticipated book of the year by ELLE, Electric Literature, and Autostraddle. For nearly two decades she covered the arts, fashion, beauty, design, and New York society as a staff writer for publications including Women's Wear Daily and W Magazine. She has a BA in history from Yale University and an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College.