Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - My Body

This book of essays really resonated with me. I felt myself thinking about past experiences with a more observant lens. To be honest it took me a long time to read this book. I was always interested in its premise, but that niggling of internalized misogyny kept me from pursuing buying my own copy. How could someone as beautiful, who seems to relish in commodifying their own body have anything to say about the female experience when they’ve benefited so strongly from the patriarchy. A women’s worth is so often based on commodifying the parts of herself most palatable to the outside world. We are taught at such a young age that people expect women to be polite, interesting, “lady-like”, but just sexy enough to keep a man interested enough to either give them the opportunity to succeed, or marry them. This felt like a mirror. It doesn’t matter what walk of life we come from, how famous, or how pretty we are; we as women are all united in a world built to take from us.

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thealbapoems's review

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dark emotional reflective fast-paced

4.0

I read one of the essays from this book online back in 2020?2021? and I remember thinking how much I liked her writing. How happy I was that more and more women were speaking up and calling out their aggressors, name, last name and occupation. Ratajkowski’s style is pithy, and beautiful in its vulnerable power. It is the first time in a while that I read a book this long in one sitting, but I just wanted to keep going. From the moment I saw Berger’s quote in the prelims I knew this was going to be a good read. I was right. She explores childhood, her relationship with her family, her fame, and of course her body (and those who have attacked it) as well as how she has managed to claim it back. I remember reading at some point that she was postponing becoming a mother because the way the world views women once they become mothers. So I am glad she has found a haven in it (as far as I understand). I will be giving this book to a lot of my friends. Thanks for writing it Emily.

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