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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
"I'd been so conditioned to feel ugly that I had forgotten that there is beauty in the human body, my body."
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
slow-paced
An interesting read for sure. It simultaneously seems to follow a linear timeline while focusing on specific stories. Leah Vernon gets vulnerable in this book as she explains what it means to her to be fat, black, and Muslim.
emotional
funny
inspiring
fast-paced
When I say I devoured this book, I mean I finished it in like..three hours. I've followed @lvernon2000 for awhile because of her ferocious fat acceptance stance, as well as her being a proud Muslim woman (I'm constantly learning about other religions and/or cultures- especially ones I'm lacking exposure to). Vernon has written something so crushingly vulnerable and beautiful that I was legitimately stunned after a few of the essays. This is one of those collections that makes you fully aware of how much work the individual put into themselves, and how beautifully the outcome has been. Not that there's any saccharine sweetness or unrealistic happy endings here, Vernon is brutally honest about the challenges she's still having to navigate, but overall, I get the vibe that she is a much stronger woman than her previous selves.
I guess it mainly felt like a lil piece of proof that alllll the hard work you put in on making yourself your best self, and saying fuck off to all those who would hold you down, DOES pay off.
[Picture ID: the cover of Leah Vernon's book "Unashamed: Musings of a Fat, Black Muslim" is laying on a background of green fuzzy blanket]
I guess it mainly felt like a lil piece of proof that alllll the hard work you put in on making yourself your best self, and saying fuck off to all those who would hold you down, DOES pay off.
[Picture ID: the cover of Leah Vernon's book "Unashamed: Musings of a Fat, Black Muslim" is laying on a background of green fuzzy blanket]
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
I almost put Unashamed down and called it a day. “Unashamed” it says on the cover, but the book is overflowing with personal insults and deep body shame. At one point, I skimmed several pages, noting Vernon had chosen to pick apart her entire body, using horrible language at every chance. Even when she starts modeling, she refers to her body in degrading ways, attaching curse words and body parts. Is it possible to troll yourself? This is supposed to be the “unashamed” part of the book, the part in which Vernon writes that she started to not care what other people think, but she doesn’t know when that happened. It was gradual, she writes. I see almost no evidence.
Originally reviewed on Grab the Lapels.
Originally reviewed on Grab the Lapels.
A little classy and a little brassy - Leah Vernon holds nothing back.
2020 Read Harder - Read a memoir by someone from a religious tradition (or lack of religious tradition) that is not your own