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sam_k_'s review
4.0
For those of you who don’t know, Emilly Prado actually hosted a talk at my school and she talked about this book and her life journey and shared some details with us and I really liked what she had to say. (She was giving away a limited number of free books for people who asked a question and signed them at the end of the talk, which was very special for me.)
This book was genuinely really good though! She formatted it as a series of essays, each chapter being an essay, which I really liked. I also liked how they were in chronological order (at least some nonfiction people have taken my advice on that) which made the reading experience very seamless. In theory you could read each of her chapters as an individual essay but having them in order just gave each essay a greater context to fit into which I really enjoyed.
All of her chapter/essay titles are song titles, and I like that touch because she often talks about (both in her talk to my school and in the book itself) how music saved her life, so that was a nice touch.
I appreciated how she tackled all of the hard times she’s had in her life, giving each of those issues and its own essay, leaving all of them to compound until Prado addresses how she’s been living with those experiences and how she’s learned to cope with them.
Despite that, really my only criticism is that her last essay felt kind of out of place with her other essays. Parts of it fit with what she’d been talking about previously but it also felt like a big advertisement and info dump at other times, if that makes sense. I think the last chapter ideally should’ve maybe been two chapters rather than one because then it wouldn’t feel like we’re following two different plots. I think she would’ve had an easier time fitting all of that content from the last chapter together in a way that didn’t feel as clunky if she’d broken it up, just so that she had more time to develop each of those plots.
This book was genuinely really good though! She formatted it as a series of essays, each chapter being an essay, which I really liked. I also liked how they were in chronological order (at least some nonfiction people have taken my advice on that) which made the reading experience very seamless. In theory you could read each of her chapters as an individual essay but having them in order just gave each essay a greater context to fit into which I really enjoyed.
All of her chapter/essay titles are song titles, and I like that touch because she often talks about (both in her talk to my school and in the book itself) how music saved her life, so that was a nice touch.
I appreciated how she tackled all of the hard times she’s had in her life, giving each of those issues and its own essay, leaving all of them to compound until Prado addresses how she’s been living with those experiences and how she’s learned to cope with them.
Despite that, really my only criticism is that her last essay felt kind of out of place with her other essays. Parts of it fit with what she’d been talking about previously but it also felt like a big advertisement and info dump at other times, if that makes sense. I think the last chapter ideally should’ve maybe been two chapters rather than one because then it wouldn’t feel like we’re following two different plots. I think she would’ve had an easier time fitting all of that content from the last chapter together in a way that didn’t feel as clunky if she’d broken it up, just so that she had more time to develop each of those plots.
clichemarker's review
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
"The cows too, victims of your web of lies."
"Expected me to do the calling, the staying in touch and maintaining our relationship."
"The impending doom that is a woman's body."
"Daring me to live up to my name. To govern the food that touches my lips when I can no longer eat "without consequence""
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder and Racism
Moderate: Rape
onlyonebookshelf's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Eating disorder, Rape, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Racism