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A review by nicdoeswords
Body Work by Melissa Febos
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
5.0
I've been moving away from star ratings recently, but I need to convey how much of a five star read this was. Affecting and reflective, Febos writes about gentleness with incisive clarity. This book reminded me how much of my peace is hard-won, and how long the path still is to confronting all of my Stuff and making space for how that confrontation will necessarily change me. I saved over a dozen lines from this relatively slim text. It is feminist, intersectional, and determined to speak truth to experience. Much like a good memoirist, I suppose, which feels like an important meta-reflection too.
This book is sort of about writing about sex, and sort of about writing memoir, and sort of about womanhood and patriarchy, and entirely about how saying the hard part out loud can save us. Febos makes no promises here that don't feel merited. If you write the story, it might not be good, but if you're honest then you'll gain something from the process no matter what.
Febos impressed me a lot with the level of intertextuality here. The bibliography at the end has become a reading map for me, and I look forward to exploring the full texts of some of the works she excerpted and discussed within Body Work. I also appreciated the footnotes, which sometimes served as pithy asides and other times reflected things Febos chose to cut or avoid focusing on and why; other times still, they added context to a text she was referencing or a story she told from her own childhood.
I'd also be remiss if I completed this review without commenting on craft. Febos' sentences are electric. She writes with confidence and verve. I'm not religious, but the chapter on spirituality and confession was deeply connecting, and I want to go back and dissect it to understand how it managed to bypass my skepticism and land in what feels like universal truth, and is more likely an honestly portrayed experience of human emotion.
This text is a little bit academic and, at times, quite angry with the way our world works, and the systems therein that disadvantage some people over others. I loved it, and recommend it unreservedly.
This book is sort of about writing about sex, and sort of about writing memoir, and sort of about womanhood and patriarchy, and entirely about how saying the hard part out loud can save us. Febos makes no promises here that don't feel merited. If you write the story, it might not be good, but if you're honest then you'll gain something from the process no matter what.
Febos impressed me a lot with the level of intertextuality here. The bibliography at the end has become a reading map for me, and I look forward to exploring the full texts of some of the works she excerpted and discussed within Body Work. I also appreciated the footnotes, which sometimes served as pithy asides and other times reflected things Febos chose to cut or avoid focusing on and why; other times still, they added context to a text she was referencing or a story she told from her own childhood.
I'd also be remiss if I completed this review without commenting on craft. Febos' sentences are electric. She writes with confidence and verve. I'm not religious, but the chapter on spirituality and confession was deeply connecting, and I want to go back and dissect it to understand how it managed to bypass my skepticism and land in what feels like universal truth, and is more likely an honestly portrayed experience of human emotion.
This text is a little bit academic and, at times, quite angry with the way our world works, and the systems therein that disadvantage some people over others. I loved it, and recommend it unreservedly.