A review by macybay947
The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat and Fierce by Angie Manfredi

5.0

How I wish I had access to this kind of literature as a teenager! This anthology is opening doors for fat activism as well as self love and happiness.

As always with anthologies, some works were stronger than others, but coming away from it as a whole I cried many times and often had to set it down to contemplate parts of it. The poems were my favorite parts, along with several of the later essays. I really appreciated the diversity of experience in this book, which really make it feel like it could fit any fat teenager regardless of race, gender, sexuality, ability, etcetera.

I've been on a deconstructionist journey in my own life and reading literature that supports my thoughts for once was really refreshing. Obviously my favorite pieces were the ones focused on analyzing literature (which has not had a very good track record for fat representation). It was so interesting to dive into others' perspectives on body representations in literature and I could read whole books on those discussions alone. Definitely a bit younger target audience than me, but well written and thought out nonetheless.