Frida Kahlo truly is iconic... not just because of her art but her life! Even a person like myself who is not very familiar with her artwork and paintings knows who she is because of the person she was and the life that she lived. She did not live a charmed life....not by a long shot! The kind of cards that life dealt her with--being stricken by polio, a horrendous bus accident that almost destroyed her body and the lifelong physical pain she had to live with--it would make any other person give up but she did not and that is what makes her an icon and an inspiration.

What Would Frida Do? provides an overview of her life and art works through which she brought forth her love for her Mexican heritage, her strong political views, her turbulent love and married life and her own definition of feminine beauty. Every chapter describes an aspect of her life that made her into the woman and icon she became. I only feel some pictures of Frida's artwork and her personal photographs could have been included with the text.

My thanks to NetGalley, the publishers Perseus Books/Basic Books and the author Arianna Davis for the e-Arc of the book.

The book was published on 20th October 2020.

This book is playful and inspiring. I have already sold this book several times at work-- and will continue to do so. Compelling and motivating, this book is great for personal growth shelves everywhere.

I've read quite a few books about Frida (she's by far my fave artist), so I was uncertain that there would be any new angles to be taken that haven't been done a million times before. "What Would Frida Do?" was a pleasant surprise. Although there are biographical descriptions of her life, Arianna Davis has injected some fun and fresh ideas by framing the book with how to use Frida as an inspiration for living a fierce, bold, and inspiring life.

I loved how each section focused on a particular area of Frida's life and described ways that a person can get inspiration from Frida to live out their dreams. My only complaint was that some of the information about Frida tended to get a little repetitive because the book wasn't written in a linear way. I would have loved more insight into her artwork as well, instead of a focus on her romantic life.

Overall, I would recommend this book to any Frida fans and, in particular, to young women who want a fun look at a revolutionary artist who can teach them how to live up to their potential.

For Frida lovers and newcomers to her fascinating world alike. As you read you can feel the love and dedication that went into creating this work. Some information was a bit repetitive but that just made it stand out and stick in my head so I found it helpful. I learned some new things about Frida and found this to be a quick, inspiring, entertaining read. 4.5 stars rounded to 5.

“Viva La Vida!”

Thank you to Arianna Davis, Perseus Books, Basic Books, and #NetGallery for an eARC of #WhatWouldFridaDo? in exchange for an honest review. Review will be posted on NetGallery, Goodreads, and Facebook.

If you are a fan of Kahlo’s art (and let’s be honest, who isn’t??) I know that you will enjoy this book.

The author looks at Frida’s life from so many angles: her creativity, disabilities, sexuality, fashion, revolutionary ideals, marriage to Diego Rivera, Mexican heritage, and many more. Then at the end of each chapter, there are several ideas of what YOU can do to emulate Kahlo’s ambition and joie de vivre in your own life.

There are so many things that I found interesting about this book, especially the way the author relates so many experiences in Kahlo’s life directly to a certain painting. It gives such insight into her mind and creative process.

I also had zero clue that Kahlo suffered from multiple disabilities. She was terribly and almost fatally injured by being hit by a bus when she was a teenager and her body never quite recovered. She also dealt with fertility issues that cause her deep sadness, which she featured in much of her artwork.

One of the biggest themes that I get from this book is that Kahlo faces obstacles head-on all while maintaining a zest for life. She housed revolutionaries in her home, loved her nieces, nephews, and godchildren, painted through the pain of multiple miscarriages, was ahead of her time as a queer and feminist icon, and my favorite - attended an exhibition of her work in her actual bed when her doctors pronounced her “bed-ridden” when her health was failing.

I’ve always loved Kahlo’s paintings and her iconic style, but I have such a newfound respect for her life and everything she stood for. Folks, definitely give this book a read.

Frida is fierce and she is compelling, both for her art and the life she lead. It is obvious why she is a Feminist Icon. Reading this book made me remember why I like her so much. She stands as herself and is not ashamed or embarrassed by that.

I have a Frida T-Shirt and just purchased her 500 Piece Puzzle. Can’t wait to get started. Reading this book , reignited my excitement for this bold women.

I recommend this book for all women, but especially for the new generation of young women who may not know her story and life. Frida is an icon and I think there will always be a passion for her.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of this book. I will live reviews both on Amazon and Goodreads in the next couple of days as the book is just coming out.

I described this book to my partner as "How to not pursue non-monogamy" because with how much focus is placed on Frida and Diego's, love? marriage? scandals?
It really does show a powerful image on how not to pursue a non-monogamous relationship, because while we see the letters they wrote between each other, it feels like in reality they weren't communicating what they needed with each other openly and honestly.

In all other parts not strictly about Diego and Frida, I found this book incredibly intriguing. This book seems to make a combo of biography and self-help book that I have never seen and found super interesting.

I've had an interest in Frida Kahlo since taking classes in college for my Spanish minor, when I was introduced to Latin American history and art. I wasn't sure what to expect from this book based on the title, but I was curious.

This is the author's first book, and while it was well-written, it felt like it could have been several long blog posts. Perhaps that was because of the casual writing tone that alternated between adoration and frivolous.

This is not really about Frida's advice to us but about the author's interpretation of what is known about Frida's life and how that can be construed as advice to live as she did, so the author made presumptions about what Frida might have told us today. I may be too old for the desired effect as I thought the "guide to living boldly" was not very original, but I appreciated how she tied it to Kahlo's life.

At the same time, it seemed somewhat repetitive. Yes, we know that she had that accident. Yes, we know she had same-sex relationships. Yes, you already told us about Diego's affairs. While it was probably a constraint of copyright or other rules, the biographical information would have been more effective with photos of the artwork and/or persons involved.

While I was underwhelmed at the overall book, I did enjoy reading about Frida Kahlo. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a digital review copy.

I thought this was such a great biography with a combination of self help book. I think that Arianna Davis did such a great with her research and how then taking different aspects of Frida's life and how somebody today can be more like her or finding the best in themselves and embraces their own identity and be very proud of it.

As the title suggests, this book is a tribute to Frida Kahlo by the author, Arianna Davis.

Frida was a woman who lived "ahead of her own time", and so, so much of what she did in her life, is still relevant today, and we could look at her life and learn from her.

I am a big Frida enthusiast so I was delighted to receive an e-ARC of this book. This was an interesting spin to put on Frida, and it is so true that she is a great role model. Thank you #netgalley for this e-ARC in return for my honest review.#5stars

I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to see a Frida exhibit, because that made everything about this book more meaningful to me. Whether or not you have any background knowledge about Frida Kahlo though, you will be fascinated by the story of her unique and amazing life.

I very much enjoyed how factual the book is, although it is not what I expected! Honestly I this gave me more biography vibes than self-help vibes. As a self-help book it was a fun and interesting read but I didn't necessarily walk away with many ideas for self improvement. I thought it was more of a compelling introduction for those looking to learn more about the artist, and I would recommend to anyone who enjoys biographies, art, or Frida Kahlo!

3.75

It was cool to get the history of Frida, I knew a little about but the book have more details... About the advices, some are cool some other might not but it's an interesting book, specially if you want to know more about Frida

If there is anyone we should be taking life lessons from, Frida Kahlo is definitely one of them. From life’s hardships and heartbreaks to being unapologetically who ever you want to be Frida Kahlo proved to us that we can and we should.

This book is a great mix of both biography and self-help. It delves into the complicated life of the artist and really gives readers a deeper understanding of who she was and what we might take away from her own experiences.

A fascinating look at Frida her philosophy of life the way she lived to her own beat.This is also a self help guide with great ideas to live a fulfilling life whose path we choose.Well written informative entertaining highly recommend,#netgalley#sealbooks

Years ago, I made friends with a stranger at a Barcelona cafe because he had a “Friday Kahlo” tote and I was wearing a vaguely floral headband. On the tote was a unibrowed, flower-dawning Frida holding a beer and smoking a cigarette, the expression on her face being very much -___-. While sipping our coffees, we chatted about how iconic Frida and her fuck-all attitude is. My first encounter with a fellow Friducha, as Arianna Davis aptly dubs fans of the legendary artist. The international love of Frida Kahlo instantly unifies.

In this part-biography/ part-self-help book, Arianna Davis explores the life lessons we all can glean from the life of Frida Kahlo, the ever unapologetically authentic woman beyond the popularized icon, immortalized on totes and t-shirts.

I feel like this book is for both those new to Frida Kahlo and the avid Frida lover, offering a different view of Frida Kahlo, a chance to reflect on the mirror of her life. For biography enthusiasts, I want to note that this is not a traditional biography tome. It won’t explore the nitty gritty details of Frida Kahlo’s life, but it might open your eyes to something about your life, in reflection of hers.

I hadn’t looked at Frida Kahlo’s artwork in a while, and looking at them now with a little more life under my belt, I saw and experienced them in a new light. Her fierce, honest confrontation and embrace of pain. A reminder of Kahlo’s boldness and candor is something I didn’t realize I really needed right now, in both my art and life in general.

I would've never expected a biography or a memior to mix well with a self-help book but this truly was the best of those genres mixing together. I guess that's a lot like Frida; mixing her feminine with her masculine. This book is full of everything you'd need to know about Frida as well as how her legacy can inspire people and change lives. Truly a great book.

As a lover of Frida myself, I really wanted to love this book. Unfortunately, this book was not my cup of tea. I found it to be bland and devoid of the life that Frida herself infused into everything she did. I had gone into reading this book thinking it would a guide that used Frida's wisdom and applied it to daily life. I instead got an interpretive biography, and that's a big difference. I probably would not have picked up the book had I realized that the way it was marketed wasn't anything like what was inside the book. This book does not make good on what the synopsis or the cover promises which is a guide to living boldly like Frida. This is a fairly dry biography with some commentary thrown in.

I had a Kindle edition of this book, and the formatting was so bad that there were times I debated just not finishing the book because the formatting was so distracting: artwork cut in half and split between pages (The one-piece not cut in half is 95% of the way through the book), and columns that should've been sidebars were not reformatted for kindle layout.

At times, the fact that this book was written and rushed to the presses within the last seven months. It feels unrefined in parts, and the section breakdowns don't always work well. It feels like it should have had a round (or another round) of beta readers on a platform such as NetGalley where I received my copy, and then had another round of revisions based on that feedback.

It was not a terrible book, but it was not what it was marketed as either.

I thought this was great nonfiction about Frida highlighting information about her that is commonly known and then the information that only experts know. The author does a great job of showcasing Frida living her life boldly! So, I think the author did what they intended to do.
I liked how the author made sure to incorporate social and cultural concepts in the work! I think the author constructed the work to have a build-up in Frida’s boldness, so the reader could become more inspired. The chapters have specific themes of Frida’s life, where there was an overlapping of information in different chapters. I wonder if there would have been less overlapping of information in chapters if the author took a chronological approach? Regardless, the author chooses these themes for the chapters to best showcase Frida’s boldness and to have it be an inspiration. I liked how there were sections in each chapter that were like a guide for how the reader could be bold like Frida was.
Now, this book received 4 out of 5 stars because of a couple of reasons. The author cites very personal reasons for choosing to do a book on Frida, which is great but mentioning the connection randomly in the beginning and the end did not help with the flow of the book. It might have done better to leave the personal connection to be in an author’s note, so it did not take away from Frida. Another reason is that as some with a BA in History, I think there should have been more sources used to construct this biography and to make the book more credible to have the sources separated by chapter not just as the book as a whole. It is always better to have too many sources of information than too few.
Overall, I do recommend this book because the information about Frida was highly interesting and the tidbits to live your life more boldly were enlightening.

What Would Frida Do?  talks about Frida’s life, love for her art and her husband most of all, her pain and heartaches, her passion and living life to the fullest despite of her circumstances.

Not much of a Frida fan as I only know that she is a Mexican artist and been being some souvenir stuff with her face on it. When I read this book, I learned a lot about her life and her works. I keep on googling all the works that the author mentioned in the book, only to find out my daughter has a Frida book we bought way back that she used it as reference for some of her art work.

The book was presented in ten chapters referencing on Frida’s life and work detailing some of the most intimate stories of her life. I enjoyed the author’s writing and the researched she put into this book is commendable. At the end of each chapter, she put in some lessons or thoughts on what would Frida do that we can also apply into our lives. Although I find some of the passages in the book she keeps on repeating and most of the lessons she presented are general and something that can found in other self-help books. But overall, I loved and enjoyed reading this and if you are fan or curious to know more about her as an icon, you need to read this.

In the last chapter titled Viva La Vida, I did not know that the song by Coldplay was inspired by Frida Khalo. After all the pain and suffering she endures over the course of her life time, in which some say she did her best works during the most painful moments, she demonstrates her love for life and yes, Long Live Life!


Thank you netgalley for the eARC.

This book is part history lesson and part inspirational/creative burst. I enjoyed the peek into Fridas life, the timeline of her work and her personal history. There were also parts that covered some of the people we know and love who were inspired by Frida. The cover is beautiful and so are the illustrations through out. I love the WWFD energy and they break it down into some interesting parts, any Frida fan would love this book!