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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
This memoir was not what I expected and I'm embarrassed by my subconscious bias.
Ratajkowski details her experiences and her modeling career intermingled with vignettes of her personal life. Immediately I was struck by Ratajkowski's style of writing and her poignant descriptions of the treatment of women (or femme-presenting people, Ratajkowski for the most part describes these experiences in the binary) in a patriarchal society.
I listened to this on audiobook read by Ratajkowski, but I would highly recommend reading a physical copy. There were so many times I would listen while driving or washing dishes and wish I could write down an excerpt. Maybe if you are a more dedicated audiobook listener than me this wouldn't pose as an issue, but that was my experience.
Looking back, I had low expectations for this book and upon reading Ratajkowski's book I know why I was surprised by its poignancy. I saw Ratajkowski's position as a model and subconsciously assumed that she lacked the ability to contribute meaningful content because she is a model aka someone to objectify. That someone so beautiful was made only for visual consumption. This is obviously not true of Ratajkowski or any model, but it took me reading this book to realize that I had fallen for this categorization trap designed by partriarchy. That some women/femmes are worthy of personhood and others are only pretty objects to look at. And the structure of the book is so excellent, each chapter building upon the idea that patriarchy is constantly telling women/femmes that they are only worthy if they are beautiful. But also that their beauty and their bodies belong not to themselves, but to men.
The book outlines these themes in a much more succinct and thoughtful way than my description so please don't let my oversimplification stop you.
I am grateful for Ratajkowski's perspective and I am already planning my next re-read.
Ratajkowski details her experiences and her modeling career intermingled with vignettes of her personal life. Immediately I was struck by Ratajkowski's style of writing and her poignant descriptions of the treatment of women (or femme-presenting people, Ratajkowski for the most part describes these experiences in the binary) in a patriarchal society.
I listened to this on audiobook read by Ratajkowski, but I would highly recommend reading a physical copy. There were so many times I would listen while driving or washing dishes and wish I could write down an excerpt. Maybe if you are a more dedicated audiobook listener than me this wouldn't pose as an issue, but that was my experience.
Looking back, I had low expectations for this book and upon reading Ratajkowski's book I know why I was surprised by its poignancy. I saw Ratajkowski's position as a model and subconsciously assumed that she lacked the ability to contribute meaningful content because she is a model aka someone to objectify. That someone so beautiful was made only for visual consumption. This is obviously not true of Ratajkowski or any model, but it took me reading this book to realize that I had fallen for this categorization trap designed by partriarchy. That some women/femmes are worthy of personhood and others are only pretty objects to look at. And the structure of the book is so excellent, each chapter building upon the idea that patriarchy is constantly telling women/femmes that they are only worthy if they are beautiful. But also that their beauty and their bodies belong not to themselves, but to men.
The book outlines these themes in a much more succinct and thoughtful way than my description so please don't let my oversimplification stop you.
I am grateful for Ratajkowski's perspective and I am already planning my next re-read.
There were parts of this that I really enjoyed. Most of it in fact. I got to listen to her narrate it which helped a lot. These stories ripped me to shreds and it was hard to read. Fantastic
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
I expected I wouldn’t like this audiobook but had no idea how appalling it would be. The lack of parenting while Emily grows up is appalling. The way she derides the industry while manipulating it to gain fame is appalling. The insecurity because she wants to be the most beautiful woman is appalling. The amount of times she posts on social media and then refreshes the page while watching the likes increase is appalling. She needs to get a hobby that gets her outside of herself.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
So good!!
“This is what you do. This is the beginning of how you forget”
“This is what you do. This is the beginning of how you forget”