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Re-reading this classic after gifting to a former student. The essays are still as powerful to me as they were when I was nineteen.
I bought this book when it came out in paperback in 1995 and read half of it then. I've now read the other half, 20 years later. Believe it or not, I can still remember some of the essays from the first time, so I feel qualified to review this. (Although my mind is genuinely blown to realize I've had the book that long.) Anyway, there's no doubt that most of these essays are interesting and worth reading. However, despite all of them being about the body in one way or another, they're really too...
A collection of personal essays, some of which I strongly identified, some I related, some I barely followed. Overall, it was a good read for connecting to the sisterhood, for reflecting on what makes us female, and for accepting that in this world, each of us has a story worthy of being shared and heard.
I loved this anthology. I loved all stories except the one of the woman with an eating disorder, as it was fiction, and all other stories I believe were autobiographic which I appreciate more. Very moving book!
so far this is an amazing anthology! wrestling with weight, age, life illness, and the philosophical matter of being a woman are just some of the topics covered. the authors in it are all fabulous...margaret atwood, lucy grealy, and many others. can't wait to finish it!
Not my favorite book club choice, but interesting to hear different womens' opinions on the stories.
A book of essays by great female essayists/writers about their own bodies and various body issues from pregnancy to eating disorders to cancer.
Definitely dated/needs to be revised for a modern reader. I wish the contributors embodied a wider range of perspectives; it seemed as though they were many essays from older women and less writing from younger voices and experiences.
I purchased this when it first came out and read most of it then. Moving around, college and life pushed it to the back of the shelf for a couple decades. I pulled it out thinking it wouldn't be relevant today, but thought I would read it again. I became very frustrated and angry that many of the same emotions I had then came up now in that in many ways NOTHING HAS CHANGED since the 90's for women. Sadly, this book is just as relevant today and really is worth the read. Yes, a couple of them are...
Another fancy feminist text, ala 2005.
I really enjoyed a lot of these essays, a couple fell flat for me but for the most part they were really great. It was obvious that a lot of these essays were quite dated, but they were still very relevant and bought up a lot of important ideas.
What more appropriate way to kick off this year-long adventure than with Patricia Foster's collection "Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul." In this beautiful, decades-old work, twenty women contribute essays on a variety of topics, issues that seem at once universal and yet particular to the female experience. From weight issues, motherhood and fertility, race, and self-esteem, these women share personal anguish and triumph.As Nancy Mairs writes in her essay "Carnal Acts", "The voi...
I really liked some of the essays and really disliked some others. Also, most of the writers were in their 50's. I would have liked to read what women of all ages have to say about their bodies, even though it is interesting to hear the perspective of women above 50 as opposed to only hearing the voice of young women
I loved that this was a collection of essays, I could stop at night after each one and reflect.
I liked Sallie Tisdale's essay a lot.
some of the stories in there would get a perfect five, but the overall collection as a whole is not as good.
as an overall collection it wasn't incredibly memorable, however there were a few wonderful essays that resonated within me.
I picked this book up at a thrift store. It was good timing as I was (am) thinking a lot about being a woman which is something that I’ve never really paid a lot of attention to and was really needing some direction. When I started this book I honestly had a lot of negative assumptions and figured I’d be rolling my eyes all the way through. It did take me a few essays to really get into it but I was moved to tears multiple times and even inspired to write a few pieces. 5/5 - 10/10 would recomme...
I was disappointed in this collection. The essays were brief and impersonal. I wanted to know more about the lives of each of the women, I think their reflections on body would have been more meaningful in that context.