Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Who Is Wellness For?: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind by Fariha Róisín

9 reviews

psammophilus's review

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

This book is surprisingly heavy. I found that I'm glad that I read it, but it really required me to be in the right kind of headspace. I would pause before recommending this book to others and STRONGLY suggest that folks check the content warnings before proceeding.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Suicide, Self harm, and Sexual assault

georgeryang's review against another edition

challenging reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm and Sexual violence

ashstrong172's review

slow-paced

2.5

This book started off strong, but never really made its point. I had hoped for an in-depth analysis of the ways in which wellness culture intersects with race and class, and Róisín did touch on this. However, the majority of the book was about her personal trauma and the search for "wellness" that came after it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Drug use, Eating disorder, Sexual violence, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, and Sexual harassment

aubreystrawberry's review

More of a trauma memoir with occasional critiques of the overall wellness industrial complex- not really what i’m looking for rn. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Sexual assault, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Chronic illness, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, and Suicidal thoughts

zaraven's review

emotional informative sad slow-paced

2.5

like others wrote, this book is more of a trauma memoir than a critique or analysis of wellness culture, and in it, Roisin locates their own experiences within existing literature on trauma and post traumatic stress rather than critiquing the ways that trauma is conceptualized in the Global North (eg hyper individualized, often located in the mother or parent, focused on recovery, etc). i resonated with some of it, a lot of it felt repetitive, some things were contradictory without much explanation (eg opening with recognizing that forgiveness is not always helpful or necessary - which I appreciated - and then closing by emphasizing the value of forgiveness without sharing much about how they got there or how they hold both), and mostly generalizing the author’s own personal experiences and offering a partial analysis that left me wanting more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Self harm, Incest, Child abuse, and Colonisation

katharina90's review

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

2.5

This book is first and foremost a memoir and describes the author's abusive childhood and how her lived experience has informed her views on "wellness". 

This book is not an in-depth critique of the wellness industry in the West with all its harmful cultural appropriation, classism, fatphobia, capitalist overconsumption, etc. 

You can catch glimpses of many those critiques but the author only scratches the surface and frequently relies on quotes from others to get her point across which makes her analysis feel unoriginal.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse

Moderate: Body shaming, Self harm, and Sexual violence

Minor: Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, and Racism

yaoipaddle's review

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

 This book is different than expected, but I am still pleasantly surprised for the most part. I expected this book to be strictly about wellness culture and not include much of the author's life, but this book has a lot of the author's personal life in it. It discusses not only wellness in terms of yoga and meditation like I expected, but also spirituality, environment, family, etc.

I'm white and I think other white people would really gain a lot reading this. I quite like a lot of the connections drawn between capitalism, white supremacy, and wellness culture as it exists in most of the world today. If you think reading something like this would make you uncomfortable as a white person, then I REALLY think you need to read this.

You can tell that writing this book brought a lot of comfort to the author, so good for her!

One of my main dislikes from this book is the overuse of references/quotes. I am not exaggerating when I say almost every single page quotes another work/person. Often times there is multiple ones. I remember one occasion when a third of the page was taken up by a massive quote. This all makes the book more clunky to read and exhausting. I find that for a lot of the quotes the author does not integrate it well to her writing. Very often I felt like I was reading a long research paper's literature review. This does not make it a smooth or fast read.

One final thank you I want to give the author is that for the first time in my life I found someone actual reference the pain the USA & NATO inflicted on my home country. I often felt like we were overseen/invisible in that sense. So thank you thank you thank you! (Not really related to the book but it still meant a lot to me so I am putting it here.) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Classism, Chronic illness, Bullying, Pedophilia, Islamophobia, Body shaming, Cursing, Child abuse, Sexual content, Rape, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Cultural appropriation, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, War, Xenophobia, Violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Incest, Grief, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Abortion

Minor: Transphobia

suzyreadsbooks's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

The title/marketing doesn’t seem to fit perfectly: it is mostly memoir, and many of the chapters had wide titles but took a very narrow approach through Róisín’s own experience with the topic (for example, the chapters on body dysmorphia and IBS). 
But once I got in rhythm with what this book was trying to do, I really appreciated it. Especially the second half (Part III: On Self Care and Part IV: Introduction to Justice).
I’d recommend the audiobook, read by the author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual violence

ecn's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

My heart was cracked open and I felt so seen in some aspects of the author’s relationship to her mother. I now need to read all of her previous work

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Chronic illness, Violence, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Body shaming, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Child abuse, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Toxic relationship, Dysphoria, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Sexism