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heyyitsleslie's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming, Eating disorder, and Fatphobia
books_are_life06's review against another edition
I’m a lesbian and the whole beginning was about boys and how they define your life. Well it was more like sexual things that define your life but she is straight and is talking about boys.
allisonsschwarz's review against another edition
1.0
I wanted to like this so bad but the book felt like a nostalgic tribute to her very boring and uninteresting party life as a young adult. She grows up to become a whiney and selfish friend who throws tantrums about her friends maturing and coming into adulthood.
lkindle's review against another edition
challenging
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
ceo6425's review against another edition
5.0
I don’t normally write reviews, but this book took me (safely) back through my twenties and college years, and landed me in my thirties (where I am now). What a testament to female friendships and the beauty of growing up together.
whykimwhenyoucanseokjin's review against another edition
3.0
I'm really confused on how to rate this one. So again I'll go with my safe Rating and say 3 stars.
This book was a fascinating experience that i didn't expect to be as relatable as it was. You see, i live in a completely different culture from that of the author. We don't drink, have bars, have casual sex or even go out to party. I live somewhere where the spiciest you can be is hold hands with a boy and maybe kiss their cheek in public, that'll get you disapproving looks from both peers and elder people to last you a decade. However! This book was able to somehow be relatable in some aspects and for that I'm thankful.
"I was aware I was bigger than my friends and was sometimes called fat, but I always had faith that my shape would make more sense when I wasn’t a kid"
I found the book interesting at first, but i didn't feel strongly for it until i got to this sentence and stopped to take a breath. I knew right away that we were getting into a very sensitive topic, both for me and apparently for the author. The way she only realized how pretty she is when she started losing weight and how people around her though better of her. How because of that, she fell into unhealthy and deprecating habits felt like a punch to the gut. Because I've been through it too. In highschool, there was a rime where i fell really really ill and barely could eat. And so as a result, i lost a lot of weight and reached my lowest weight at the time. When i somewhat got better, i got up off my bed for the first time, looked at the mirror and couldn't believe my eyes. I looked so skinny, which in my brain was the epitomy of beauty. However, when i started getting better and eating more, the weight that i shed off came back with vigilance, And so this sent me into a downward spiral where I'd starve myself for days and feel faint and sick for most school Days. It reached the point when I would make myself throw up to stop myself from feeling guilty for eating. It was just a mess overall and took me a lot of time and effort to give up on those bad habits.
"The only truly mortifying moment came when, at a barbecue aged fifteen, my parents’ extremely drunk and spectacularly overweight friend Tilly grabbed my love handles like she was steering the wheel of a ship before announcing to the garden that ‘us chunky girls have got to stick together’ and telling me in no uncertain terms that ‘men like a bit of meat on a girl’, before I received a conspiratorial wink from her husband who was, incidentally, also the width of a Vauxhall Zafira."
This made me chuckle in the most self deprecating way because, been there done that. At one point i even hated going to my relatives houses just so they wouldn't start commenting about it. And the problem is they didn't even know what it was doing to you, they even meant it as a compliment.
Anyways enough of this depressing stuff and into something else!!
"‘One day we will sit in a nursing home, Dolly, bored out of our minds and staring at the quilt on our laps,’ she said.‘And all we will have to make us smile are these memories.’"
This one quote makes me want to appreciate my life just a little bit more, even if it's not exactly everything I've dreamt of , it's still something that is extremely precious.
"Promise when we’re fifty we’ll be exactly the same with each other."
This hits home. And by home i meant it makes me want to shrivel up into a ball and die. I remember, years ago, me and my best Friend promising each other the same things. We were in highschool and it's been like 5 years of us together or something. We thought we were inseparable, made for each other to be best friends forever. Now, fresh out of university, I can't help but shed a tear for the naive us from all those years back. The author talks about how even if you try so hard to hold onto a relationship with a person, to make it work, and stay the same, it eventually gets out of your control. I saw this in my friendship with this girl that i thought was the center of my universe at one point. I know I'm being dramatic, after all i still talk to her from time to time, and we meet every couple of months. However, even though nothing had changed in the way we interact, everything still change. We would had awkward silences that we didn't use to have before. It just wasn't the same, and it breaks my heart to witness it. The author did a good job of opening my eyes up to this and somehow try to accept that even my current friendships will eventually dwindle out, it still breaks my heart all the same.
"I’ve watched it time and time again – a woman always slots into a man’s life better than he slots into hers."
Well if this isn't true, especially in my society. The moment a woman gets married, it's like she's been plucked out of her universe where the people that she loves and love her back exist, and is instead thrust into this man's world where everything is foreign and new and confusing. And sure you can say she gets to know and love those people too, but what about the old loved ones? Why must it be a sacrifice of old relationships that you spent years and a lifetime polishing, for new relationships?
"She told me once that she never wanted to be forgotten."
First of all, Rip Florence, she was a true angel.
When i read that sentence all i could think was
this is literally my biggest fear !! just imagine that in a few years, nobody will remember you even existed.. that's terrifying, that a human being with a life, dreams and feelings can be forgotten just like that, their headstone turning dusty and bleak untill not a letter can be read of their name, nothing to be remembered with.
"Boys fascinated me and frightened me in equal measure; I didn’t understand them and neither did I want to.Their function was for gratification, whereas female friends provided everything else that mattered."
This one made me think. You see I'm bisexual in I'm very much interested woman too, which i think can somewhat morf my experience with women? That being said. I somewhat relate to this , in the sense that, men are something that i think I'll never truly understand. And i don't even think i want to?. I just, sometimes look at other people's lives where they're Married to men they once loved and but are now neutral towards and all i could think is why? Why are you still here with this person? Is it a me problem and i just don't understand what true love and commitment to someone is like ? I truly believe that no man will understand me as my female friends or even female lovers do. I feel so much more alive around them, whereas with men there's always that sense of , am i doing this right? Is this okay? Will he think this is weird or unacceptable?? It's like a never ending cycle of what ifs and why's, and it is exhausting. (This is not to say that i hate on men and think they're lower or anything like that, i just think me and them are just different)
Anyways, i thought this was a good book, especially considering I don't read much nonfiction and am only reading this because my friends decided to nominate it for our book club. It was a good experience, thought provoking and eye opening in equal measures. However i have to say, some of the things in this book were so unnecessary and this could've been shorter. Like what was the point of the recipes and text and emails that added nothing to the story?? As someone who has 0 interest in cooking and never picked up a book in her life, i have to say listening to the audiobook going on and on about this food and that and how to cook them was pure torture. Also the emails? Why tf would i care this person I don't know is marrying this other person I don't care about and how their wedding it going to go, how many guests were invited, what alcohol and food were available and so on? It really irked me and took me out of the enjoyment of the book every single time. The book would've been so much better without all that, and i would've rated it much much higher. Also, what's with the time jumps and random scenarios coming out of left field? It really felt like i was reading an unedited version or a draft of the book rather then the actual thing. Like i know some people like when their books are not following a chronological timeline but still, this was just so confusing and all over the place at times.
Regardless of all that, i still think this is a solid read and would even recommend it to people in their 20's.
"When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it.It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all.When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else."
I thought this quote was a good way to put an end to my review, so here it is.
This book was a fascinating experience that i didn't expect to be as relatable as it was. You see, i live in a completely different culture from that of the author. We don't drink, have bars, have casual sex or even go out to party. I live somewhere where the spiciest you can be is hold hands with a boy and maybe kiss their cheek in public, that'll get you disapproving looks from both peers and elder people to last you a decade. However! This book was able to somehow be relatable in some aspects and for that I'm thankful.
"I was aware I was bigger than my friends and was sometimes called fat, but I always had faith that my shape would make more sense when I wasn’t a kid"
I found the book interesting at first, but i didn't feel strongly for it until i got to this sentence and stopped to take a breath. I knew right away that we were getting into a very sensitive topic, both for me and apparently for the author. The way she only realized how pretty she is when she started losing weight and how people around her though better of her. How because of that, she fell into unhealthy and deprecating habits felt like a punch to the gut. Because I've been through it too. In highschool, there was a rime where i fell really really ill and barely could eat. And so as a result, i lost a lot of weight and reached my lowest weight at the time. When i somewhat got better, i got up off my bed for the first time, looked at the mirror and couldn't believe my eyes. I looked so skinny, which in my brain was the epitomy of beauty. However, when i started getting better and eating more, the weight that i shed off came back with vigilance, And so this sent me into a downward spiral where I'd starve myself for days and feel faint and sick for most school Days. It reached the point when I would make myself throw up to stop myself from feeling guilty for eating. It was just a mess overall and took me a lot of time and effort to give up on those bad habits.
"The only truly mortifying moment came when, at a barbecue aged fifteen, my parents’ extremely drunk and spectacularly overweight friend Tilly grabbed my love handles like she was steering the wheel of a ship before announcing to the garden that ‘us chunky girls have got to stick together’ and telling me in no uncertain terms that ‘men like a bit of meat on a girl’, before I received a conspiratorial wink from her husband who was, incidentally, also the width of a Vauxhall Zafira."
This made me chuckle in the most self deprecating way because, been there done that. At one point i even hated going to my relatives houses just so they wouldn't start commenting about it. And the problem is they didn't even know what it was doing to you, they even meant it as a compliment.
Anyways enough of this depressing stuff and into something else!!
"‘One day we will sit in a nursing home, Dolly, bored out of our minds and staring at the quilt on our laps,’ she said.‘And all we will have to make us smile are these memories.’"
This one quote makes me want to appreciate my life just a little bit more, even if it's not exactly everything I've dreamt of , it's still something that is extremely precious.
"Promise when we’re fifty we’ll be exactly the same with each other."
This hits home. And by home i meant it makes me want to shrivel up into a ball and die. I remember, years ago, me and my best Friend promising each other the same things. We were in highschool and it's been like 5 years of us together or something. We thought we were inseparable, made for each other to be best friends forever. Now, fresh out of university, I can't help but shed a tear for the naive us from all those years back. The author talks about how even if you try so hard to hold onto a relationship with a person, to make it work, and stay the same, it eventually gets out of your control. I saw this in my friendship with this girl that i thought was the center of my universe at one point. I know I'm being dramatic, after all i still talk to her from time to time, and we meet every couple of months. However, even though nothing had changed in the way we interact, everything still change. We would had awkward silences that we didn't use to have before. It just wasn't the same, and it breaks my heart to witness it. The author did a good job of opening my eyes up to this and somehow try to accept that even my current friendships will eventually dwindle out, it still breaks my heart all the same.
"I’ve watched it time and time again – a woman always slots into a man’s life better than he slots into hers."
Well if this isn't true, especially in my society. The moment a woman gets married, it's like she's been plucked out of her universe where the people that she loves and love her back exist, and is instead thrust into this man's world where everything is foreign and new and confusing. And sure you can say she gets to know and love those people too, but what about the old loved ones? Why must it be a sacrifice of old relationships that you spent years and a lifetime polishing, for new relationships?
"She told me once that she never wanted to be forgotten."
First of all, Rip Florence, she was a true angel.
When i read that sentence all i could think was
this is literally my biggest fear !! just imagine that in a few years, nobody will remember you even existed.. that's terrifying, that a human being with a life, dreams and feelings can be forgotten just like that, their headstone turning dusty and bleak untill not a letter can be read of their name, nothing to be remembered with.
"Boys fascinated me and frightened me in equal measure; I didn’t understand them and neither did I want to.Their function was for gratification, whereas female friends provided everything else that mattered."
This one made me think. You see I'm bisexual in I'm very much interested woman too, which i think can somewhat morf my experience with women? That being said. I somewhat relate to this , in the sense that, men are something that i think I'll never truly understand. And i don't even think i want to?. I just, sometimes look at other people's lives where they're Married to men they once loved and but are now neutral towards and all i could think is why? Why are you still here with this person? Is it a me problem and i just don't understand what true love and commitment to someone is like ? I truly believe that no man will understand me as my female friends or even female lovers do. I feel so much more alive around them, whereas with men there's always that sense of , am i doing this right? Is this okay? Will he think this is weird or unacceptable?? It's like a never ending cycle of what ifs and why's, and it is exhausting. (This is not to say that i hate on men and think they're lower or anything like that, i just think me and them are just different)
Anyways, i thought this was a good book, especially considering I don't read much nonfiction and am only reading this because my friends decided to nominate it for our book club. It was a good experience, thought provoking and eye opening in equal measures. However i have to say, some of the things in this book were so unnecessary and this could've been shorter. Like what was the point of the recipes and text and emails that added nothing to the story?? As someone who has 0 interest in cooking and never picked up a book in her life, i have to say listening to the audiobook going on and on about this food and that and how to cook them was pure torture. Also the emails? Why tf would i care this person I don't know is marrying this other person I don't care about and how their wedding it going to go, how many guests were invited, what alcohol and food were available and so on? It really irked me and took me out of the enjoyment of the book every single time. The book would've been so much better without all that, and i would've rated it much much higher. Also, what's with the time jumps and random scenarios coming out of left field? It really felt like i was reading an unedited version or a draft of the book rather then the actual thing. Like i know some people like when their books are not following a chronological timeline but still, this was just so confusing and all over the place at times.
Regardless of all that, i still think this is a solid read and would even recommend it to people in their 20's.
"When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it.It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all.When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else."
I thought this quote was a good way to put an end to my review, so here it is.