Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon

6 reviews

maddramaqueen's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

This book rocks.  Literally everyone should at least try to read it.  I recognize that it can be triggering, and it was for me, but especially for straight-size people who have not experienced anti-fat bias on a societal level this is absolutely necessary.  Even as a fat person myself I learned so much about the violence facing those fatter than me that I was entirely unaware of.

If you can't handle the topics covered, I fully understand.  I'm in eating disorder recovery myself and this topic was triggering for me.  But the final chapter is one of the greatest pieces of activist writing I've ever read and I think everyone should read that chapter *at least*.  

Thank you so much for writing this, Aubrey Gordon.  It will be an oft recommended book in my future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Medical trauma, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexism, Hate crime, Medical content, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Fatphobia, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Ableism, Chronic illness, Drug use, Death, Child abuse, Dysphoria, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Classism, Eating disorder, Domestic abuse, Rape, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Colonisation, Transphobia, Toxic friendship, Drug abuse, Stalking, and Terminal illness

matcha_cat's review

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Eating disorder, Body shaming, and Fatphobia

Moderate: Stalking, Ableism, and Misogyny

Minor: Death and Sexual assault

stevia333k's review against another edition

informative inspiring tense

4.5

This is a good book when I'm trying to get a different angle on conversion torture because this book is geared for the intersection of fat activism & feminism. i recommend this book. basically, screw the myth of willpower. i would say the book is scary with its descriptions of street harassment & assault, but there's a sort of horror of oppression that's alluded to but not explicitly gotten to, even though there is a lot of connections talked about throughout the book. that being said i'm adding these next 2 paragraphs in order to help synthesize what i got from this book with other information i've seen, especially since i haven't read like academic journals about fat rights, fat liberation, fat studies, etc. while i have marked it with spoiler formatting, please note that i have added information that are from other sources.

That being said, I feel like the book has a lot of emphasis on hatred against fat people, when i noticed that a lot of the bullying i faced in school was connected to people trying to assimilate & suck up to the teachers. it's the trying to get closer to enclosured power as opposed to breaking that privatization & getting it distributed equitably.

like there's 2 things i think of at least: the military wanting a one-size-fits-all outfit to make gear standardized (they ended up having to make 3 sizes), and how fatness is used to play into desireability politics to cover up how white patriarchs raped black perceived-females. like, i sense those were meant to be simmering in the background, (we literally started out with how fatphobia is connected to militarism, and how fatphobia is compared to an "epidemic" like how bourgeois depictions of famine refugees as zombies & "great replacement" canard works with settler colonizers. but again, these are left lower-key.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Hate crime, Sexual harassment, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Sexual assault, War, Ableism, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Grief, Stalking, Violence, Bullying, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Rape, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Sexual violence, Medical content, Racism, and Sexism

toffishay's review

challenging emotional informative fast-paced

4.0

A really vulnerable and informative memoir/non-fiction exploration of anti-fat bias in modern Western society, all the legal, social, emotional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal challenges of an obsession with thinness, and what can be done to change the pervasiveness of this issue. This is a quick read and provides awesome resources to learn more. The language and style of prose is also quite lyrical and beautiful, but gets a little repetitive in places with the same phrasing used throughout. Overall, an awesome read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia

Moderate: Racism, Violence, Sexism, Panic attacks/disorders, Stalking, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Self harm, Transphobia, Medical content, Bullying, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Toxic relationship, and Body shaming

skudiklier's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I regularly read books that I think everyone should read, but this is one I know I'll be recommending for a long, long time, to as many people as I can. I've followed Aubrey Gordon's work for years, and have been convinced of her positions for a while now, but this book lays out everything in such a clear, damning way. This book answers the questions I haven't known how to when having arguments with other straight-size people about anti-fat bias, and addresses everything you may think to ask about. This book should be required reading for everyone, but *especially* those going into the medical field in any way. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, Bullying, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Hate crime, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Violence, Transphobia, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Sexism

Moderate: Rape and Sexual content

Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, Death, Drug use, Excrement, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racism, Suicide, and Stalking

junefish's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Body shaming, and Bullying

Moderate: Chronic illness and Self harm

Minor: Abortion, Child abuse, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, and Sexual violence