| | Body Drama: Real Girls, Real Bodies, Real Issues, Real Answers
List Price: $20.00
Amazon Price: $11.93
Average Customer Rating:  (5 reviews)
Editorial Review: “You’d think a Miss America swimsuit winner would feel completely confident about her body, right? Not always! So I decided to write the book I wish I’d had as a teen and in college—an honest, funny, practical, medically accurate, totally reassuring guide to how women’s bodies actually look, smell, feel, behave, and change. Alongside real-deal photographs of women just like you and me (no airbrushing, no supermodels, no kidding) you’ll find medical pictures of things you need to be able to recognize, true confessions by yours truly, and the encouragement you need to appreciate the uniqueness, strength, and beauty of your body. What are you waiting for?”
–Nancy Redd
From fashion magazines to taboo Web sites, curious young women have access to tons of old wives’ tales about and thousands of airbrushed and inaccurate images of the female body—misinformation and harmful portrayals that can lead to low self-esteem, self-destructive acts, or even disturbing plastic surge...
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Customer Reviews:
Summary: Unique and important
Content: What a book this is! I won't repeat what others have said; but everything about it is stunningly clever, from the title to the back cover, of course including the contents. It's unique as advice for teenage girls about their bodies: sharp, brainy, witty beyond merely funny, yet compassionate and never derogatory. You know what this book exudes? Sass with class.
On the back cover we read, among other things, "Know your body. Own your body. Love your body." That sums it, don't you think? But how many girls today do all three? Or two or even one?
Ms. Redd takes 272 knowing and loving pages to tell us not just why they don't embrace those three (or themselves) but how they can, indeed must. If teen girls took to heart even a fraction of the advice in this book, America would be a leader in body acceptance and not the western world's most shameful example of body ignorance, negativity, and phobia.
The author speaks from experience, kicking in things about herself as a minor Body Drama Queen. But the book isn't about her; it's about how to fix the root of a major American psycho-social problem: the perception of female bodies. The solution: start with girls themselves. Duh! If girls can treat themselves to fact instead of fiction, their body confidence will surely rise, along with everyone's well-being.
Famously, there are daring photos and discussions in this book. Yep, including breasts and vulvas. It's about bloody time! (Pardon the non-joke.) Why shouldn't they be included? Do girls have them or not? Do they worry about them or not?
Best of all, the feisty attitude revealed by the vulva spread (I didn't say that, did I) carries on throughout. The book has such a piercingly clear voice that if you felt any closer to the author, you'd be pushed away.
For sure, I don't agree with everything in the book. But my questions are mostly quibbles, coming from a different approach in some areas. The main thing is: this is one boffo book, providing something really important: 'powerment with 'tude. And that's "admirable attitude," not "asinine."
Ms. Redd continually describes a body issue and asks "How do I deal?" Girls will deal by reading and transforming, I hope. The rest of us should deal by getting this book for them --- or anyone who cares about them.
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