Sara Morelli's Reviews > My Body
My Body
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by

Sara Morelli's review
bookshelves: 2022, f-ebook, g-non-fic, g-essays-collections, g-memoir
Jan 06, 2022
bookshelves: 2022, f-ebook, g-non-fic, g-essays-collections, g-memoir
Let me start by telling you what everyone wants to know: Emily Ratajkowski can write and it's not her first time doing so either. She's clearly been writing. Now that we've ascertained that this is not your run of the mill influencer memoir, we can proceed.
To put it briefly, I liked it and I think it's a book worth reading. Ratajkowski is brutally honest, genuine, and sufficiently self-aware to pull this one off. She certainly doesn't hold back and she doesn't hide behind a finger. She's also not scared to repeatedly question herself and go to some very uncomfortable, ugly places. It almost seems like she draws strength from being vulnerable, which is very endearing and empowering to read; she's not asking for pity or for understanding because she doesn't need either. The reason why she writes (as she stated in the introduction) is to understand, to make sense of her relationship with her body.
"My Body" is a collection of very self-reflective, intimate, personal essays. You can tell that she's written each and every one of them for herself and herself only. I could also tell that she had little to no ambition to sell it as something bigger than what it is, so I don't know why some people got into it expecting some new groundbreaking perspective on intersectional feminist theory. She's not here to teach us or explain anything. She's here to explore, to navigate her own story in search of answers. If anything, she's the one trying to learn something here.
Don't pick this up if you're looking for some intellectually and culturally critical dissection of feminism because you won't find it here. There's plenty to read on the subject written by much more experienced and authoritative figures (may I recommend bell hooks? Lola Olufemi? Angela Davis? Mikki Kendall?). To all the people that I've seen complaining about how narrow, specific, and limited the scope of this book is: OF COURSE, IT IS. It's her experience, it's her thoughts, it's her body. She's not an anthropologist, a philosopher, or a feminist scholar. She's just a woman who wants to get to know herself better. I don't know why y'all started holding her to such high standards. Of course, the whole thing is flawed and doesn’t cater to people universally, it’s not supposed to and she never promised to. Stop trying to slap ambitious purposes on it only to complain that it doesn't live up to those intentions. There was no intention. Take it for what it is: the journey of a woman in the exploration of her body in a capitalistic economic system.
To put it briefly, I liked it and I think it's a book worth reading. Ratajkowski is brutally honest, genuine, and sufficiently self-aware to pull this one off. She certainly doesn't hold back and she doesn't hide behind a finger. She's also not scared to repeatedly question herself and go to some very uncomfortable, ugly places. It almost seems like she draws strength from being vulnerable, which is very endearing and empowering to read; she's not asking for pity or for understanding because she doesn't need either. The reason why she writes (as she stated in the introduction) is to understand, to make sense of her relationship with her body.
"My Body" is a collection of very self-reflective, intimate, personal essays. You can tell that she's written each and every one of them for herself and herself only. I could also tell that she had little to no ambition to sell it as something bigger than what it is, so I don't know why some people got into it expecting some new groundbreaking perspective on intersectional feminist theory. She's not here to teach us or explain anything. She's here to explore, to navigate her own story in search of answers. If anything, she's the one trying to learn something here.
Don't pick this up if you're looking for some intellectually and culturally critical dissection of feminism because you won't find it here. There's plenty to read on the subject written by much more experienced and authoritative figures (may I recommend bell hooks? Lola Olufemi? Angela Davis? Mikki Kendall?). To all the people that I've seen complaining about how narrow, specific, and limited the scope of this book is: OF COURSE, IT IS. It's her experience, it's her thoughts, it's her body. She's not an anthropologist, a philosopher, or a feminist scholar. She's just a woman who wants to get to know herself better. I don't know why y'all started holding her to such high standards. Of course, the whole thing is flawed and doesn’t cater to people universally, it’s not supposed to and she never promised to. Stop trying to slap ambitious purposes on it only to complain that it doesn't live up to those intentions. There was no intention. Take it for what it is: the journey of a woman in the exploration of her body in a capitalistic economic system.
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Reading Progress
December 27, 2021
– Shelved
December 27, 2021
– Shelved as:
to-read
January 3, 2022
–
Started Reading
January 3, 2022
– Shelved as:
2022
January 3, 2022
– Shelved as:
f-ebook
January 3, 2022
– Shelved as:
g-non-fic
January 3, 2022
– Shelved as:
g-essays-collections
January 5, 2022
–
65.0%
January 6, 2022
–
Finished Reading
February 4, 2022
– Shelved as:
g-memoir