Landwhale

Here are my bullet points about why I've enjoyed this book and recommend it for folks of ALL SIZES to read.*Body liberation is what's up, whatever your size. I learned about the importance of body liberation vs body positivity and am on board 100%, read the book to understand why.*Her honesty is fresh and empowering. If you've ever wondered if you're the only one who's had (fill in the blank thought/experience), Jes Baker is willing to open up and share her own experiences so that you know you're not the only one.*Representation is important.*She's done a lot of critical thinking on weight, body image, health and any other number of related topics... this is one hell of an opportunity to really understand these issues through the mind of someone who has put a copious amount of time, intelligence and energy into understanding and navigating these controversial and necessary subjects.Read this book. Thank you Jes Baker for your vulnerability!

The last two chapters are what I hoped the whole book would be like. However, for me, it took an inordinately long time to get there. The encouragement early on to simply go with your impulses and damn those who don’t understand may be fine for plus size people but is hugely dangerous for those with diabetes,morbid obesity or other serious medical issues. I’ve worked with people who have had multiple amputations as a result of not being able to control their diets and it’s not pretty. So much of the book struck me as irresponsible and self-aggrandizing.Additionally I believe this would have been a much better book with a better editor. Sadly it reads, to my mind, as a if the author was putting together a rushed term paper on loads of coffee and uppers. Bloggers need to understand that blogging is not the same as producing a good nonfiction book. A much better book from my perspective is Judith Moore’s Fat Girl which seemed a more coherent and well thought out treatise on struggling with weight.I understand that many will disagree and find the book enlightening and edifying. Sadly I am not one of those.

I took my time reading this book, so I could really understand the author's point of view. It started off as a funny, breezy book, and Jes described her life with asides that made me smile. Then she dug in deep to the nooks, crannies and shadows of her experience in a larger body. I really appreciated her honesty, vulnerability and candidness. She brings up some questions I'm not sure if we're going to be comfortable answering for ourselves in our own hearts, which is what makes this book worth reading.

Jes was one of the first people I found on Instagram when I stumbled upon the body positivity community. I immediately started scrolling through her posts and wanted to be friends with her! As soon as I saw she wrote I book, I had to buy it. I could not put it down!!! I cried, I laughed, it made me angry, it made me feel less alone. I’ve had body image issues since I was 10 years old and reading her story has given me hope. Hope that I can love myself for who I am! Thank you for sharing your story Jes! I will be recommending it to everyone I know!!

A big fat permission slip to live your "whole truth"! And there really is no greater gift than that. I rarely laugh out loud while reading but Jes has an amazing and genuine way of writing and I found myself doubled over screaming with laughter. Additionally though, and maybe more importantly, I found her overwhelmingly honest words encourage me to work on crap that had been sitting dormant for almost 11 years. The best (and only) "weight" to lose is the emotional pain and shame that serves to keep you down instead of living. Our lives are never perfect (ever!) but becoming more whole by releasing all of it (good, bad and ugly) makes for a pretty damn amazing adventure. Jes encompasses all of that and more. I have been so waiting for a book like this and it could not have come at a better time! Thank you, thank you, thank you Jes!

Where do I start with this book. Jes writes in the most conversational way that makes you want to continue the conversation with her even after you are done with the book. Her story about she and her Dad was so honest and real. I can totally relate. I have rarely seen someone be so vulnerable in a book. Jes put it all out there. She does not leave any detail out about what it's like to exist in a fat body.The pages (around 133) where she describes how she sees 3 vulva/vaginas in the mirror when she looks at her body is just …. WOW..... been there, done that. I mean, if you are fat you have likely seen all of those awful memes the haters make showing pics of fat women out in public. That stuff HURTS to the core. Jes so honestly puts it all out there and it helps you to realize you are not the only fat person having these thoughts. This book is such a gift for fat people everywhere.I would also suggest that if you are thin and consider yourself an ally, this should be required reading. It really shows you an honest and comprehensive idea of what it is like to be fat in our country.Great read. Love the cover, too. GO JES! Thank you.

I love this book for many reasons - for Jes' open-ness, for her honesty and for helping me to see into a world that I do not currently have lived experience of. That might sound hella controversial to some, but if it's something that helps me to understand humans (good and bad), weight stigma, discrimination and bias more clearly for everyone in my life - then I'm all for it. It's also opened up some conversations that felt too painful to have, and for that I'll be forever grateful.Her writing has helped people everywhere to navigate their lives better, to know and understand that their weight and lifestyle are not inextricably linked to a) their health or b) their morality - in a world which is constantly screaming otherwise. And besides which, their bodies are their own freaking business.Long story short - if you're thinking about reading it, just read it. Everyone needs to read this book.

I have loved Jes Baker for her realness and writing style since “What No One Tells Fat Girls” and was very excited to order my copy of Landwhale.It took a few sittings to read this as I found it, in parts, emotionally triggering. It is so real, so honest, and so relatable that it can feel like opening up badly-stitched wounds. Through her words, though, Jes heals those wounds with care and precision.An absolute must-read for fatties and allies alike.

This book is nothing short of breathtaking. Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Jes' first book, I was expecting more of the same but this book is like the grown up sister of "Things no-one will tell fat girls" and I hope that doesn't sound condescending.Landwhale takes the reader compassionately and, at times, bluntly, through the reality of living in a fat body and doesn't hide from uncomfortable truths along the way. There is a lot of humour but also honesty and vulnerability. Jes' story mirrors my own in lots of ways and I'm sure that of many other fat people and it is heartwarming to feel so deeply understood. This book has obviously been written by someone who has spent a long time doing the painstaking mental work that is necessary to be able to thrive in this - often sick - society where fat people are seen as an acceptable and mandatory "ism".This is the book I have dreamed about writing if only I had the ability to put thought into words! It should really be read by everyone, not just fat people needing a gentle and loving hand in their own struggles. It is elegantly and beautifully written and is so very badly needed. Thank you Jes for having the courage to put yourself out there. I salute you!

Have a greater life as a larger person! Get onboard with the ‘fat acceptance’ movement. Our decades or lifelong quest to be a ‘desirable' weight has brought us years of unhappiness and misery. Shed the burdens of society’s expectations that we should all look like models, whether we are fat, thin or in between. Celebrate who we really are.Jes takes us through the familiar situations we have all faced. The judgements that people, including ourselves, make about our bodies being less than some ideal of perfection. This book beats the crap out of these ideas. Jes gives us strategies to deal with fat-life as it is, with some laugh-out-loud humour to make her manifesto even tastier.Learn how to carry ourselves in real-life situations, subvert the usual advice about clothing styles and dress to celebrate our size. Challenge everything we think we know about being a big person. And strut on that plane like we own it.Kick the self-loathing into touch; we all have to work with the fabulous body that we already have. Be kind to yourself. Buy Jes’s book. I promise you will love it.And diets can kiss our collective big arses.

Jes Baker’s first book, the self-help-cum-memoir Things No-One Will Tell Fat Girls, resonated with me so strongly that I ended up writing an essay on it. Landwhale is definitely not the same book (and nor should it be): while it’s still served with a good-sized helping of badassery, it’s a much more traditional memoir which finds my favourite body positive heroine getting incredibly vulnerable. It definitely wasn’t as easy, or as fun, a read, but that probably makes it an even more important book.