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A review by meghan_readsbooks
Big Girl by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
4.0
Thank you to HighBridge Audio for the review audiobook of Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's Big Girl (live right publishing for the physical book). This is a wonderful story, one that brings in so many wonderful elements about race, social class, culture, appearance/weight related pressures and messaging, and does this do well within a coming of age story set in Harlem in the 1990s. Malaya's story was vibrantly and lyrically written and done justice through the voice narration from Lisa Reneé Pitts.
There are powerful themes on stigma in this book and I personally found the ideas about appropriation, the taking of Black culture and voice, and Malaya's movement towards understanding herself and the world around her were well written . I loved how the story focused on Malaya's movement towards reconciling her identity in the face of trauma, White privilege and academic pressures, and in the face of food and weight related pressures. I found myself thinking about some of the books I have read about White girls and disordered eating and body image and how this story is so needed to lend focus to intersectionality within race and social class. I was reminded in places of some of Roxanne Gay's memoir and essay writing.
There are powerful themes on stigma in this book and I personally found the ideas about appropriation, the taking of Black culture and voice, and Malaya's movement towards understanding herself and the world around her were well written . I loved how the story focused on Malaya's movement towards reconciling her identity in the face of trauma, White privilege and academic pressures, and in the face of food and weight related pressures. I found myself thinking about some of the books I have read about White girls and disordered eating and body image and how this story is so needed to lend focus to intersectionality within race and social class. I was reminded in places of some of Roxanne Gay's memoir and essay writing.