The novel is coming-of-age speculative literary fiction set in the near future and deals with the themes of isolation and belonging in an increasingly technological world.

It also examines the ways artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and the weaponization of social media will impact geopolitics, society, and cultural norms in the decades ahead, and explores how technological advances are often coopted by governments to assert or maintain power.

[2] Beautiful Shining People is primarily set in a future Tokyo, Japan sometime in the 2040s against the backdrop of a digital Cold War waged between the United States and China as part of their superpower rivalry.

While in bed together, John discovers Neotnia is missing a part of female anatomy and she soon reveals herself to be the world's first android and says the seizures she's been suffering are because of a “splinter” inside her that is causing her physical and mental pain.

Despite John's attempts to stop her, Neotnia takes her own life to prevent her code from falling into the wrong hands, sacrificing herself so governments can't continue to use technology to achieve power by inflicting suffering on innocent populations.

Midwest Book Review “unreservedly recommended” the novel, stating, “Original, eloquent, carefully crafted, and an entertaining read from beginning to end, ‘Beautiful Shining People’ will hold immense appeal to fans of historical thrillers, science fiction, and literary excellence.”[6] Foreword called Beautiful Shining People "shimmering," giving the novel a starred review.

"[7] SciFi Now named it a Book of the Month, saying “[s]et against a tech heavy backdrop Beautiful Shining People blooms into an emotional and soulful tale that reckons with the isolation we can all feel as outsiders.”[3] SFX Magazine also named Beautiful Shining People a Book of the Month, stating, “That Beautiful Shining People isn't just a slipstream novel with pretensions to being literature is in great part down to the deftness and tenderness with which Grothaus draws his central relationship … to let us explore a world of robots and deepfakes that's just unfamiliar enough to be exotic.”[8] GeekDad compared the novel's style to David Mitchell’s Number9 Dream and Nick Bradley's The Cat and the City, “mystical novels that dovetail contemporary Japanese culture with older traditions whilst adding a dash of fantasy or science fiction elements,” concluding that “[t]he triangle of John, Neotina, and Goeido's relationship is what makes the novel shine.