The Little Vanilla Book

This is one badass book that is meant to inspire equally badass women.

I am going to write this review a little different than I normally do. I am going to focus on one section of this amazing little book... On Body Image.

We all worry about how we look. It is easy to become discouraged. A lot of us the our body. We shouldn't, we are what we are. I am not saying we should just let ourselves go, but we should at least not think of ourselves as lacking because of how we look. We need to have confidence in how we look.

I have a friend who thought she was too big. She was so desperate to be “beautiful” that she starved herself. At ne point she had no clue how small she had truly become. It took me and her sister forever to get her to step on a scale. When she did she was shocked at what she actually weighed. The person she saw in the mirror was still overweight. Before she actually weighed herself, I remember her arguing that she knew she was still going to be over 200 pounds. Nope, 125. She had no clue that she had gotten that small. I am glad that she recognized her problem and immediately got herself into counseling and motivating classes. At work i have a resident who was so desperate to be the “perfect” woman for her husband that she start chopping off the bad parts of her body. No lie, she carved away parts of her stomach, upper arms, and inner thighs. Her story doesn't stop there though. When she was taken to the hospital they put her in the psychiatric ward. She was put n a medicine called Depakote. They overdosed her by accident and she suffered brain damage. She lives in one of our lower function group homes and will never be self reliant again.

If you want to know why women have fucked up body images, blame the media. Or the culture-wide sexualization of girls and women. Or the invention of scales and mirrors. To start the healing process is to stop separating our body image from our relationship with ourselves.Placing blame isn't owning what's in our control, which is the way we relate to ourselves. It is not possible to connect to our hearts while objectifying our bodies. Nor treating our bodies as projects or as our primary value...

Something I didn't know:

Did you know that Dr. Seuss wrote a book for adults about naked women heroes? No joke! ‘The Seven Lady Godiva' is a subversive satire n the ancient legend. Each of the Godiva I are illustrated as innocent “sheros” with different shapes, sizes, and ages, exemplifying the body positively that roller girls, dommes, and feminists rock today. Each Godiva gains wisdom from from a scruffy, charming horse and shares her truth with her naked troupe. Oddly awesome female empowerment and a reminder that life lessons can come in unlikely packages.

This book left me feeling empowered. I want to grab that little black dress I have hanging in the closet, put it on, and not worry if I missed a spot shaving. I want to get together with my girlfriends and go out to celebrate my gender. I want to roar.

I also wanted to point out how pretty this book is. There is not book jacket. It is pretty, and has a very feminine look to it. I love the basic vanilla and black coloring, and the inscription n the back is nice, HOWEVER YOU ROCK IT, YOU ARE A SACRED FEMININE BADASS.


Recommendation:

This is a great book. I think the message it gives is amazing. Women everywhere should read this. Yes, this was written with a BDSM theme, but just as examples.