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A review by wishfulfillment
The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat and Fierce by Angie Manfredi
5.0
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#ownvoices review
I was going to go through each of these essays and give them separate ratings, but by the time I got to the middle of the book, they'd all been 5 stars. This essay collection handles #ownvoices intelligently by focusing on having fat folks talk to us about fat politics, rather than about individualized personal experiences of being fat. Idk how this seems to you, but I have read too many essay collections claiming to be about an #ownvoices topic, but then being just about how a handful of people think and feel. The authors here and well-versed on the topic. They pay attention to what the audience as a whole needs to know, and not just what they want to say, even those authors who wrote letters to their teenage selves. When focusing on an identity and the politics, hatred, and positivity around it, the editor and collaborators created an educational work that is a must-read more than just a dip in the experience pool of the fat identity.
If you're wanting another synopsis:
The editor makes clear in their introduction and throughout the work, the fat folks who wrote these essays are not just size 12 cishet white women! They are trans, nonbinary, queer, bisexual, black, asian, indigingeous, Mexican, survivors of rape, in recovery from eating disorders, disabled, AND SO ON. They discuss how sometimes one or two of their other identities are treated the exact opposite way than their fat identity. One of them even discusses what it's like to meet fatness standards only in their ethnicity but not by US standards, and another discusses what having white-passing privilege is like! I could go on and on!
#ownvoices review
I was going to go through each of these essays and give them separate ratings, but by the time I got to the middle of the book, they'd all been 5 stars. This essay collection handles #ownvoices intelligently by focusing on having fat folks talk to us about fat politics, rather than about individualized personal experiences of being fat. Idk how this seems to you, but I have read too many essay collections claiming to be about an #ownvoices topic, but then being just about how a handful of people think and feel. The authors here and well-versed on the topic. They pay attention to what the audience as a whole needs to know, and not just what they want to say, even those authors who wrote letters to their teenage selves. When focusing on an identity and the politics, hatred, and positivity around it, the editor and collaborators created an educational work that is a must-read more than just a dip in the experience pool of the fat identity.
If you're wanting another synopsis:
The editor makes clear in their introduction and throughout the work, the fat folks who wrote these essays are not just size 12 cishet white women! They are trans, nonbinary, queer, bisexual, black, asian, indigingeous, Mexican, survivors of rape, in recovery from eating disorders, disabled, AND SO ON. They discuss how sometimes one or two of their other identities are treated the exact opposite way than their fat identity. One of them even discusses what it's like to meet fatness standards only in their ethnicity but not by US standards, and another discusses what having white-passing privilege is like! I could go on and on!