Trigger warning: This review contains mentions of eating disorders and mental illness. If you would prefer not to read about these topics, please scroll on. Take care of you.
Our society places ridiculous pressure on women and girls to look a certain way.
And at this time of year, the bonkers voice of diet culture is LOUD. You’ve probably seen the following nonsense on your screens: “New year, new you! Summer bikini body! Try a cleanse!”
This week’s read is a valuable antidote to this harmful and hollow dribble.
With a title like All I Ever Wanted Was to be Hot, and a fluro yellow cover with hot pink lettering, Lucinda Price’s memoir looks like candy and sounds like a war cry. I knew I had to check it out.
Price is a trailblazing vlogger and blogger, known for creating viral content at the forefront of social media marketing’s infancy in Australia. From a young age, she knew she wanted to be in the public eye – and that she wanted to be HOT. From straightening and dyeing her naturally brown curly hair as a kid, to a high school nose job, to a breast job in her 20s, Price spent her youth believing that being as “hot” as possible was the key to success.
And for a while, everything was going great. Until she realised she was in the grips of an eating disorder and her health – mental and physical – was suffering terribly.
Now in recovery, Price has used her personal journey to explore our culture’s problematic beauty standards. Price’s sincerity, whether she’s interrogating interviewees (including her mother) about body image, or detailing her cosmetic surgeries, means her book is never preachy – you feel like you’re chatting with a friend.
Body image and mental illness are very serious topics, and Price absolutely does them justice. But at the same time, her story is full of humour and heart. This is an important read that is as entertaining as it is empathetic. I read it rapidly, and I hope many people, particularly women and girls, will find this book as insightful as I did.
