Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

This was a great nonfiction to start the year with. It made me stop and thing and reflect, which I really appriciate. It gave lots of tidbits that I will bring with me into the new year in how I look at my own (disabled) body as well as others. I can see the appeal of having a hardcopy to flip back on as reminders now and again.

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rieviolet's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.5

This book deals with a very important topic and introduced me to the term "body terrorism", which is a pretty neat expression and very fitting to encapsulate all the oppression and damage inflicted on non-conforming bodies.

I found the informative parts very interesting and actually, I wish that more time and pages could've been spent on such reflections. However, I think that this could be a good starting point for people completely new to such themes.

The overall structure of the book didn't entirely convince me. I think that the essay-style sections and the self-help ones didn't blend together well. It might be a bit of a "me problem" as well, as I don't do very well with the self-improvement genre.
Also, as another reviewer pointed out, the mixing of academic and more conversational language made the writing style feel a bit all over the place.

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emfass's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Everybody should read this book. A loving look at all the systems that have been put in place to make us hate our bodies. Sonya Renee Taylor offers us a beautiful way back to ourselves and to each other.

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mj_86's review against another edition

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hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

Profound, life-changing narrative about how radical self-love can change yourself and the world. Amazing and thought-provoking, my highlighter barely had a break while I worked to realize every effort to make myself less for others (or myself) would fail.

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spacekee's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

I appreciate the attention Taylor pays to expanding this work beyond self, showing how radical self-love can transform communities and entire systems. I don't see that focus in self-help books nearly as often as I'd like.

Beyond that, this wasn't the mindblowing, heart-opening revelation so many people promised me it would be. If it were my first exposure to the concepts that Taylor is packaging under the label "radical self-love," maybe I would be as madly in love with it as others are. But I found little here that I haven't been finding in therapy and my spiritual practice for almost a decade. tbh, I took more notes on Ijeoma Oluo's introduction than on the body of the text.

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