I love a feminist book, I love hearing a strong woman talk about how wrong things are and how us women deserve more! Who doesn't?! But I am not a huge fan of non-fiction. I don't like the idea of being spoken at, for not knowing something that someone feels I should know, rather than told a story for my pleasure. But my friends have read this book therefore it was now my turn!
Too Fat Too Slutty Too Loud discusses various female celebrities, each within their own chapter, explaining why they are 'too much'. Serena Williams is 'too strong', Nicki Minaj 'too slutty' and Kim Kardashian is 'too pregnant'... Too pregnant? I mean, what?! But its true, each chapter covers this and many more female celebrities, using headlines from newspapers, quotes from past interviews and even from the celebrities themselves. Anne Helen Peterson has done her research, all of which is documented at the back of the book should you wish to check her sources, or just investigate further if you are intrigued to know more! It is clear this is a well documented piece of work, which is why I feel bad having given it only three stars.
Anne Helen Petersen is clearly a very intelligent individual who is passionate about this subject, but it feels like she tried to get this across too much in her writing. Like I say I am not a fan of non-fiction so I could argue I am already at a bias, but I really did want to take this all in. However I felt there were many paragraphs where I completely zoned out. Anne's language felt so foreign to me at multiple times had no idea what she was saying. It made me feel quite stupid actually. Surely I should know all these long words she is saying. But it was a long string of complicated words and sentences made into complicated paragraphs and it completely lost its intention with me. I found I read words not even noticing them. Because of this I really struggled to pick the book up at all and definitely took longer to finish given the size. This is rather disappointing as a topic like this, that highlights women's faults in the spotlight and how wrong this is, should be accessible to all women! Every woman should see proof in the media how we are discriminated against simply for being female. I do not feel I could recommend this book to every woman as I think it would get lost in translation and perhaps not enjoy it.
That being said there was plenty to take in. For example, did you know Serena's father hired local gangs to shout racial abuse at her and Venus to prepare them for what will inevitably be said in the media? They did other things too but this one stuck with me. Or that 'up until the 1950's the word 'pregnancy' was not even allowed on screen'? Or that Melissa McCarthy always faced questions about her weight in interviews even when her weight was not a theme in the film etc that she was promoting? I found these things incredibly interesting and of course there are so many more! And of course if you like some of these celebrities then the chapters may be easier to read than I found it. Let me know if you want the list of women included and I can let you know, but ill leave this out in case people want it to be a surprise upon reading 😉
All in all I am glad I read it, but I am even more glad that I have finished it. I couldn't give it a lower rating given the research and interesting facts I learnt, but it didn't break ground with me i'm afraid.
**I wanted to leave you with the final paragraph of the book as I found this the most compelling. I will include this after the below photo so if you do not want to see it please do not scroll down too far!**
Too Fat Too Slutty Too Loud by Anne Helen Petersen
Pages - 234
Goodreads Rating - ⭐⭐⭐
SPOILER
Extract:
