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A review by cricklewood
You Are Not a Before Picture: How to Finally Make Peace with Your Body, for Good by Alex Light
informative
reflective
fast-paced
2.25
Accessibility: 7/10
Coherence of arguments: 7/10
Informativeness: 1/10
Value to me: 3/10
Overall enjoyment: 4/10
Total: 22/50 (2.2)
I struggled really hard to write this review, because I was so certain going into the read that it was going to be a highly-rated one.
I was, however, wrong.
Don't get me wrong. I love Alex - I have been following her for years on Instagram. I lap up all her posts, and have enthusiastically bought into her story and message and share her vehemence for diet culture and the problems it has caused for everyone.
But this just wasn't a very good book. It was a bit of a memoir, a bit of a self-help book, a bit of a guide, but it wasn't good enough at any of it. It was incredibly rambly at parts and (an audiobook problem no doubt) the performance of the audiobook was really grating. I think that Alex's messaging works far better on bite-sized mediums like Instagram, where we have pictures and repetition is welcome instead of punished, instead of a medium like a long form book where it feels stale pretty quickly.
Coherence of arguments: 7/10
Informativeness: 1/10
Value to me: 3/10
Overall enjoyment: 4/10
Total: 22/50 (2.2)
I struggled really hard to write this review, because I was so certain going into the read that it was going to be a highly-rated one.
I was, however, wrong.
Don't get me wrong. I love Alex - I have been following her for years on Instagram. I lap up all her posts, and have enthusiastically bought into her story and message and share her vehemence for diet culture and the problems it has caused for everyone.
But this just wasn't a very good book. It was a bit of a memoir, a bit of a self-help book, a bit of a guide, but it wasn't good enough at any of it. It was incredibly rambly at parts and (an audiobook problem no doubt) the performance of the audiobook was really grating. I think that Alex's messaging works far better on bite-sized mediums like Instagram, where we have pictures and repetition is welcome instead of punished, instead of a medium like a long form book where it feels stale pretty quickly.