Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

Don't Think, Dear: On Loving and Leaving Ballet by Alice Robb

8 reviews

andreaaj4's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

a must-read for anyone who grew up dancing ballet and/or has a fascination specifically with NYCB/SAB/Balanchine-aesthetic like myself. i felt every emotion possible- anger for all the ways ballet and some of its figureheads have caused harm to women, happiness and nostalgia over the little details that are forever ingrained in my identity from my time as a ballerina, to grief over "what could've been", and more. also incredibly impactful for me to read about the sections that discussed EDs, body dysmorphia, and trauma given my work. well-written and well-researched, i am left feeling incredibly reflective and with much to consider with my own ongoing relationship with ballet. take note of content warnings before reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Sexism, Misogyny, Sexual assault, and Eating disorder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Sexual content and Racism

sierrajhansen's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

this book had such beautiful writing that demanded it be read slowly, while i wanted to read it voraciously. i appreciated that each chapter gradually crystallized to explore a clear overarching theme, from sex, pain, power, and the abuses of old white male choreographers such as balanchine. i didn’t know a lot about ballet before reading this book, as i don’t consider myself to be a dancer or an athlete, but appreciated learning more about the psychology of dancers and the insular world they exist within. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia and Eating disorder

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Toxic relationship

cadybooks's review against another edition

informative reflective sad fast-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Cultural appropriation, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Child abuse, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Addiction, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Terminal illness, Cursing, Grief, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Gaslighting, and Mental illness

Minor: Vomit, Gore, and Body horror

bookswithrobin's review

informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

I picked up this part memoir, part historical account on ballet because the cover with the pointe shoes caught my eye as I was scrolling through Libby looking for my next read. I took dance for 13 years with ballet being my favorite class to take. I found myself relating to so much of what Robb wrote - the perfectionism, the joys AND pains of being a dancer, the regrets of leaving it behind, and reminiscing on my time as a dancer. It was very interesting to read about her experience as a dancer because it was SO different from mine. I do wish there was more about Robb’s experience as a dancer, but this was still a very solid read. Definitely recommend to anyone who has an interest in ballet or is a former/current dancer.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Body shaming, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Fatphobia

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, and Infidelity

gondorgirl's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Adult/minor relationship, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Fatphobia, Eating disorder, Bullying, Sexism, Addiction, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Body shaming

stargirlmolly's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, Toxic relationship, Fatphobia, Emotional abuse, and Body shaming

Moderate: Blood, Sexism, Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, and Sexual assault

jiscoo's review

dark emotional informative reflective sad

4.25

My best friend in high school was a classically trained ballerina who danced for hours every day. I was a classical musician with a masochistic streak—something my teachers lauded as unusual work ethic and which got me accolade after accolade in my small public school orchestra world. During our sophomore year, our shared intensity lit a fuse between us and we became inseparable: we were the pair of perfectionists in every class working past the bell, the ones who took every casual competition a little too far, the friends who were obsessed with each other because obsession was our entire modus operandi. The year I sat next to her in math class, I had the best posture of my life, just by passively mirroring her. Friends started calling us by a portmanteau of our names. We shared headphones in the cafeteria to listen to The Nutcracker the year she danced it and I played it—for separate productions. We considered ourselves spiritual soulmates because we understood the darkest things about the other before she even disclosed it: the consuming spirals of self-doubt, heinous amounts of jealousy toward other girls, routines of physical and psychological self-harm. We encouraged each other, kept the other alive, but also  served as one other’s blinders, reflecting and reinforcing each other’s monomania and together retreating into that world of our own where every emotion was a little bit sharper and every pain a little sweeter.
Neither of us went professional in our respective performing art. But even as we ostensibly studied something else—academic—in college, we both threw ourselves into rehearsal after extracurricular rehearsal. We found ourselves in the studio or practice room until closing time day after day during the four borrowed years that our liberal arts degrees allowed us to nurse the performing dream, even if it had already, by then, passed unseen into the realm of fantasy. We are now one year out of college. She still dances, in open classes; I still play, keeping on top of my repertoire from college. But when we talk about it, it is still through a layer of unspoken what-ifs, of the grand dreams we carried for so long our anatomies (both physical and metaphorical) have grown around it, irreversibly.
Alice Robb's exploration of the modern history of American ballet and her reflection on her own experiences as a SAB trainee and former pre-professional dancer was eye-opening and resonant. I also learned so much about the history of ballet, about the parts of my best friend's world I hadn't been privy to, about the sources of her habits and tendencies that had been mystifying or even annoying to me. Though the path to becoming a professional ballerina is far more cutthroat than that to a professional career as a classical musician and the lottery considerably more bottlenecked, I felt stripped bare and pierced through my Robb's descriptions of the self-destructive rituals of dancers and the lasting effects of an adolescence spent at the barre. Robb is a wonderful storyteller who pulls no punches in this book, which is well-researched and admirably honest. Through case studies, mythologies, and reflections, Robb deconstructs the world she loved and left, giving us a glimpse of the beauty and the bloodshed (which are one and the same). What stays with me now is that the “world of our own” that my friend and I had found is in fact populated by a legion of dancers and other performers, and that for better or for worse, we all have permanent residency there.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, and Fatphobia

allthebestjess's review against another edition

emotional informative slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder and Fatphobia

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship