sjj169's review against another edition
3.0
Hair....
Most women fight it. Some love it. Some even just embrace it's many moods. We all have hair stories though.
This book is some of those stories.
And it's actually quite good.
Because I tell you, you take a person with fluffy, wiry hair like mine and you put her in a convertible with the top down, the person gets out of the car looking like Buckwheat. Or Don King. It helps in one way to wear a hat, but when you take it off you have terrible hat hair-It looks like a cartoon mouse has been driving a little steamroller around your head.
(This story is not in the book but it's one that immediately came to mind for me.)
I remember when actress Keri Russell cut her hair..she went from this..
to this...
and people totally flipped out. Her show that she was on at the time even suffered in the ratings because of it.
There is some serious stories to this book as dealing with "chemo hair" and the fact that black women feel like they have to spend a fortune on their hair.
Then there is one story in particular that talks about the "other hair" that women deal with.
A friend told her about this..
"Women should vajazzle their vajayjays." It made her feel better, she said, after a nasty break-up.
A brief aside on what vajazzling entails: someone strips all the hair off your vulva, labia, and anus and then glues crystals or pearls in some sort of decorative motif in place of the hair.
First of all: Don't google this (Or the phrase "Willie Nelson vagina tattoo.") You can't unsee it.
You guys have no idea how bad I wanted to include that Willie Nelson vagina tattoo in this review. Because you know I looked. Just like I know you are gonna look.
Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.
None of my friends have read this book yet..but reviewers should still be superstars. So I'm including this review.
Most women fight it. Some love it. Some even just embrace it's many moods. We all have hair stories though.
This book is some of those stories.
And it's actually quite good.
Because I tell you, you take a person with fluffy, wiry hair like mine and you put her in a convertible with the top down, the person gets out of the car looking like Buckwheat. Or Don King. It helps in one way to wear a hat, but when you take it off you have terrible hat hair-It looks like a cartoon mouse has been driving a little steamroller around your head.
(This story is not in the book but it's one that immediately came to mind for me.)
I remember when actress Keri Russell cut her hair..she went from this..
to this...
and people totally flipped out. Her show that she was on at the time even suffered in the ratings because of it.
There is some serious stories to this book as dealing with "chemo hair" and the fact that black women feel like they have to spend a fortune on their hair.
Then there is one story in particular that talks about the "other hair" that women deal with.
A friend told her about this..
"Women should vajazzle their vajayjays." It made her feel better, she said, after a nasty break-up.
A brief aside on what vajazzling entails: someone strips all the hair off your vulva, labia, and anus and then glues crystals or pearls in some sort of decorative motif in place of the hair.
First of all: Don't google this (Or the phrase "Willie Nelson vagina tattoo.") You can't unsee it.
You guys have no idea how bad I wanted to include that Willie Nelson vagina tattoo in this review. Because you know I looked. Just like I know you are gonna look.
Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.
None of my friends have read this book yet..but reviewers should still be superstars. So I'm including this review.
layla_platt's review against another edition
3.0
3.5!
This book was really interesting and definitely made me think of my relationship with my hair and wonder what my relationship will be with it tomorrow, in 10 days, or in 10 years. I think this is a great for any women to read at any age.
This book was really interesting and definitely made me think of my relationship with my hair and wonder what my relationship will be with it tomorrow, in 10 days, or in 10 years. I think this is a great for any women to read at any age.
cedrics_mom's review against another edition
4.0
Enjoyable and relatable, Me, My Hair and I is a book that all women will find something to laugh out loud over, say "I thought I was the only one" over and wonder over. Hair is so many things to us: political, sexual, individual, conforming. Apparently how we do our hair and the hair choices we make say a lot of things about us and for many women those choices indicate freedom (and sadly at times its lack). While all ages and several races are included, the absence of gay hair leaves us to long-held social stereotypes. It would have been great to hear the hairstory of a gay woman but I guess that'll have to wait. Overall it's a good read and perfect for dipping in and out of as time allows.
andrea_rebekah42's review against another edition
4.0
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of essays. Most of the women I know--myself included--spend a lot of time and money on our hair. Sometimes that's because of vanity, but these essays show that sometimes hair is about culture, illness, attachment, or self-worth. Usually it's some kind of combination. This book proves the stories of our hair are far more fascinating than we might have realized.
eraderneely's review against another edition
I enjoyed this book, much as I thought I would, but one creeping thing started to bother me about 1/3 of the way through and it just ruined the whole experience - nearly every one of the contributors lives in New York. It just gives a very exclusive feel to a book I thought was supposed to be inclusive - all the various experiences women have with their hair.
rachelini's review against another edition
2.0
I had a hard time with the fact that a book on women's relationship with their hair would have so few essays from black women.
panda_incognito's review against another edition
3.0
Hair has never been a special interest of mine, but this essay compilation caught my eye at the library with its beautiful cover and quirky concept. From glances inside, I could see that the prose was excellent all throughout, so I decided to give it a try. Many women had interesting stories to share about the way hair affected and framed their life circumstances and journeys, and I enjoyed the anecdotes and philosophical musings, but even though each essay was unique and personal in the moment of reading it, now that I am finished with the book, most of them blur together because they dealt with such similar themes and circumstances.
There was a mix of diverse writers, so I learned new things about other's religious traditions and cultural backgrounds, but the age and economic similarities between the authors got tiring. Because they are mostly from the same generation, they had similar cultural influences and hair experiences, and now they have many of the same thoughts about hair, family, maturity, and identity. I would have appreciated the inclusion of some younger writers still figuring out their hair and themselves. Also, these were the voices of people well-off enough to spend a lot of money on styling and products. There's no shame in financial security, but it got awfully tiresome to read recitals of which fancy salons these women frequented and what hairstyles they got there over the course of years.
The most interesting essays dealt with universal human feelings in the context of the woman's individual experience, while those which fixated only on the writer's hair and circumstances got tiresome quickly and meshed in memory with the other boring ones. I can't tell you how many essays I read about women with frizzy brown hair who had to learn how to tame it and accept themselves. Were there three? Eleven? It felt like more than half the book. Even though the frizzy brown hair essays included interesting anecdotes or thoughts, the focal point was what the hair was like, and I hardly remember those stories now. Also exhausting was the sheer number of women who had hair expectations imposed on them by culture, religion, or their mother and found themselves by detaching their sense of self from that culture, religion, or mother. All of the stories were unique in some way, but I think this book would have been more enjoyable in a shorter, more selective form without so much theme repetition.
There was a mix of diverse writers, so I learned new things about other's religious traditions and cultural backgrounds, but the age and economic similarities between the authors got tiring. Because they are mostly from the same generation, they had similar cultural influences and hair experiences, and now they have many of the same thoughts about hair, family, maturity, and identity. I would have appreciated the inclusion of some younger writers still figuring out their hair and themselves. Also, these were the voices of people well-off enough to spend a lot of money on styling and products. There's no shame in financial security, but it got awfully tiresome to read recitals of which fancy salons these women frequented and what hairstyles they got there over the course of years.
The most interesting essays dealt with universal human feelings in the context of the woman's individual experience, while those which fixated only on the writer's hair and circumstances got tiresome quickly and meshed in memory with the other boring ones. I can't tell you how many essays I read about women with frizzy brown hair who had to learn how to tame it and accept themselves. Were there three? Eleven? It felt like more than half the book. Even though the frizzy brown hair essays included interesting anecdotes or thoughts, the focal point was what the hair was like, and I hardly remember those stories now. Also exhausting was the sheer number of women who had hair expectations imposed on them by culture, religion, or their mother and found themselves by detaching their sense of self from that culture, religion, or mother. All of the stories were unique in some way, but I think this book would have been more enjoyable in a shorter, more selective form without so much theme repetition.
lordranger's review against another edition
5.0
I won this book for free in the Goodreads First Reads giveaway.
I was actually surprised by this book. I thought it was only going to be OK, but I was wrong. This isn't only about hair. It's about cultural values and what makes a woman a woman. I learned how religion can influence someone's beliefs about what is considered clean or unclean in regards to hair, and how hair can be used to control others. It definitely gave me a new perspective on women of other cultures, and a better understanding of how hair is so much more than hair. A fascinating read.
I was actually surprised by this book. I thought it was only going to be OK, but I was wrong. This isn't only about hair. It's about cultural values and what makes a woman a woman. I learned how religion can influence someone's beliefs about what is considered clean or unclean in regards to hair, and how hair can be used to control others. It definitely gave me a new perspective on women of other cultures, and a better understanding of how hair is so much more than hair. A fascinating read.