Book Review: Shrill by Lindy West
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This video outlines how I personally use a specific tip Lindy West shares in her book Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman about how to love your body.
Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman
As a counsellor and online personal coach working predominantly with women and queer folk, body image comes up as a regular source of pain. It’s almost impossible to ignore the messages we are sent constantly- straight or queer or white or WoC or disabled or whoever we are- about who or what we should look like, what’s ‘acceptable’.
This opens up a chasm of crappy feelings that, quite frankly, serve no purpose and don’t help anyone embrace desired changes in their lives. They only serve the purpose of lining the pockets of beauty brands when we attempt to ‘better’ ourselves.
I’m a curvy woman with fluctuating weight, hirsutism and PCOS. If you have PCOS (or you have a loved one with it) you’ll know there’s a lot of us who have struggled. In particular with difficult-to-control weight gain and excess body hair.
When I was young, there wasn’t an easy way to expose yourself to positive images of women who are fat with hair on their bodies who are seen as beautiful.
Now there is.
In this video book review of Shrill by Lindy west, I talk specifically about how this can help you be good to your body and mind. Let’s get out of ‘The Matrix’ creating our identities for us.
An extra note on this amazing book Shrill by Lindy West. I loved this book, but to be completely honest, at times I think maybe it’s preaching to the converted. It’s also really painful to see how traumatised Lindy West has been by the horrendous bullying she’s received on social media.
It may be empowering for you, if you’ve been bullied or abused online, to see the very unusual tack Lindy West takes to addressing one of these bullies.
But I think ‘Shrill’ really comes into it’s own when it comes to practical ideas on how to love your body. Particularly if you are a young woman, or you have a young woman in your life, do buy this book. It’ll be a game-changer I promise.
Also Lindy West is very funny and completely irreverent. I’d say check out her Twitter, but she’s just deactivated it. But I recommend this illuminating and hysterical review of Love Actually. I genuinely read it every single year and laugh myself stupid.
FINALLY. Here are the links I mention in the video book review of Shrill by Lindy West:
Instagrams of curvy celebrations:
Slink Jeans
Love Curvy Women
Tumblr for non-normative babes
Random comic
Queer ten Straight zero: a comic about chin hair
Enjoy your journey away from self-hate body-beatups and towards being and feeling confidently awesome.
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Great video Nicole. You are a very courageous woman and use self disclosure in such a positive way. This is a subject most women grapple with and a source of great discomfort for many.
I will be getting in touch with you soon with some writing.
Thank you for these kind words Jan. Self-disclosure can be a tricky one sometimes! I just want women to know that I too am flawed and struggling with some of the same things we all do. I’m not immune to the pressures from society or from sadness or worry or any other human experiences. So if we can all share how we move forward in times of challenge then we may unearth solutions we hadn’t thought of! I look forward to writing with you again soon Jan.