The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition

The Body is Not An Apology: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Thank u @netgalley and @bkpub for this copy!

This book is a step along this little blip called life. In life we are born with radical self love, but over time, it is dissolved by the acid of media messaging, capitalistic motives, and bigotry. We have learned that ego, self-confidence, and self-esteem will help us float on, but Sonya Renee Taylor instead offers us a more expansive option.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This book is both fundamental and profound. Sonya covers the basics but then pushes us deeper. I am sharing my thoughts on some concepts rather than a review.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
💎I was compelled by Taylor’s word choice of body love as “unapologetic” - I have been indoctrinated with the word “rebellious” in its place - so I was curious about why she used this word, but she never says it explicitly. When I thought about it, I realized “rebel”is about disobedience while “unapologetic” is about normalization. Taylor’s word choice is precise - it’s about erasing our notion that the default template for a good body is healthy, white, able-bodied, straight. It’s about erasing this template at all.
💎 I was pushed to think beyond “you don’t have to be thin to be healthy” into the terrain of “you don’t have to be healthy to be valued, loved, and secure.” Wow.
💎 I also really loved how Sonya Renee Taylor explores the concept of leaving behind pity for others based on their bodies - we feel pity because we think we are better than someone. When we pity someone, we search for redeeming qualities as if it's a compliment. Sonya pushed me to unpack my judgements when I feel pity, and instead to understand that there is no wrong way to have a body.
💎 Finally, I loved Sonya’s explanation of detriment buying vs. best interest buying. She explains that a lot of our spending is based on feelings of inadequacy. We should buy to move towards our best selves instead of away from our fears.

I cried while reading this book and started over again right as I finished it. Remarkable.

This book is a true masterpiece for anyone who has ever struggled with body image. We are taught to hate our bodies, but the bodies are all we have. Sonya Renee Taylor illuminates the cruel irony of how we see and treat ourselves, speaking of many issues I think about every day, and many I have never thought of before.

Thought provoking and inclusive, The Body Is Not An Apology is a brilliant book about self-acceptance, self-love, diversity, gender, race, sexuality and body terrorism - a term entirely new to me. It is truly a must-read for everyone, especially because it's short.

With the beautiful, intimate writing style and the stunning cover, I am compelled to rate this book five shining stars.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Book is empowering. We need more literature like this for women to read, especially young women. This is amazing.

The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Genre: LGBTQIA | OwnVoices | Self-Help
Release Date: February 9, 2021

The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor is a book about body positivity, self-love, social justice, and oppression.

I had wanted to read this when it first released a few years ago and I just never got to it. Part of the reason is that I think I wasn't ready for it and was afraid of how it would make me feel. As someone who struggles with body image & confidence issues, I just wasn't in the right place to handle it.

Fast forward to now, and I regret waiting so long to reading this. I absolutely loved this! I was drawn in from page one and I couldn't put it down until I reached the end. This book had me feeling all the feels and it was so worth it! This was so much more than I expected and I am so grateful to have read this!

I'm so grateful to Sonya Renee Taylor, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.

This book is a refreshing view on how we can each work to achieve self-love, and it isn't solely an individual journey. We have to choose to see others - all bodies - with love and compassion and grace. This thought stretches to body image, body size, race, gender, sexual orientation and more. Sonya Renee Taylor asks thought-provoking questions that provides for self-reflection into our own body beliefs. I enjoyed these questions and through them learned new insights. My eyes are open to the many ways in which we are told by our inner judge, society, media and the news that our bodies, or certain bodies, are wrong. These thoughts and societal norms are not right! No body is wrong. We might be different, but all bodies are beautiful.

The very last section of the book is on the topic of Grace, and I think it needs to be read by everyone. If you could read only one section of this book it should be this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berret-Koehler Publishers for the advanced reader copy of this book. I’m grateful to have read such an eye and inner-world opening book!

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Sonya Renee Taylor is quick to anticipate the reader's doubts and questions as she details her journey and tools on radical self-love. She offers some startling statistics, relevant anecdotes, and a fantastic list of additional resources from racial, disability, and queer justice advocates. With an extreme self-awareness, she doesn't overpromise this book as an end all and be all on these topics. She challenges the reader to examine within and use this as a stepping stone to unlocking one's potential in not only practicing self-love, but dismantling the oppressive systems that every body is subjected to. This is a great supplementary read to pick up after finishing Roxane Gay's Hunger.

Thank you NetGalley and Berrett-Koehler Publishers for the advanced copy!

This book takes an empathetic approach and gives bite size approaches and allows you to have kindness and patience with yourself when dealing with life. This is so necessary for everyone to read in life. Highly recommend. Especially loved the reflection to true life to humanize my feelings and relate. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Big thanks to @netgalley and @bkpub for providing a digital review copy.

Everyone should read this book! I found myself shouting "yes!" multiple times while I was reading, and I highlighted so many passages in every chapter. Sonya Renee Taylor explores the intersections between self-love and social justice, and explains why we cannot pursue social justice without first examining our relationship with our own bodies.

What I loved most was that Taylor discusses radical-self love as an abstract concept while also providing step-by-step advice about how to apply the concepts she outlines.

I will be recommending this book for years to come!

This book is incredible! It is all about self-compassion and radical self-love. The book is inclusive and informative. I highly recommend and will be sharing with my clients.

First, let me just say wow! I have never heard of Sonya Renee Taylor before reading her book, but if I were to have come across her, I probably would have judged her movement as the extension of the vapid body positive moment (just my opinion).

But no, Sonya is so much more and radical self love is much more as well. Through this incredible book I learned how systemic the treatment of "non-default bodies," is. It pieced together a lot of information I knew and opened it up to a larger context, and introduced me to new ideas and questions to ask myself.

On a personal note, I learned that I have a long way to go to achieving self-love, radical or not.

I recommend this book to all people and all bodies. I think we all can stand to learn how we got here, where "here" is, and how to reshape what it means to love ourselves and others.

I was so fortunate to once be a member of TBINAA’s leadership circle—I did a brief internship with the great Sonya Renee Taylor in 2014 for The Body is Not An Apology here on Instagram! (#badpicturemonday). Of course back then, I didn’t know what I was running up against in my brain, and I fizzled out from something I really felt passionate about instead of seeing it through. • Nevertheless, my admiration for Sonya stands strong, and I was honored to read and advanced copy of the 2nd edition of this book from NetGalley and the publisher• I cannot recommend this highly enough. With tons of space for you to really reflect and do the work it takes to practice radical self-love, this is a must-read for 2021 no matter who you are. #thatllpreach #radicalselflove #tbinaa #badpicturemonday #thebodyisnotanapology

This book is life changing. As a black woman that has struggled with body image since childhood I found this book freeing and refreshing. I often wondered what my life would have been had I recognized earlier in life that I am good enough. Even with that realization I still struggled with accepting what I viewed as flaws in my appearance. This book not only helped me to identify the source of the discontent, it also put me on a new unapologetic journey of self acceptance. Thank you Sonya Renee Taylor.

#netgalley #thebodyisnotanapology

As many other reviewers of this book have said, this is a must-read for anyone with a body. Whether you have a loving relationship with your body or a combative one, this book will give you a solid understanding and steps on how to work towards radical self-love. Sonya Renee Taylor clearly and beautifully defines this concept, and provides concise means of doing the work. She has a lovely way with words and it is no surprise that others have wanted to tattoo these words onto their own bodies. There is a companion workbook coming out in a month, and for those who really want to practice radical self-love, I'm willing to bet it will be fantastic.

From the title and cover alone, I was intrigued. The book lived up to my expectations. As someone who struggles with her body, this book was just what I needed to read. Very good read.

Sonya Renee Taylor's radical love manifesto is a must-read, for those self-help junkies and new age newbies alike. My favorite thing about this book is that it's not just a string of lamentations or self pitying, nor is it filled with the same clichéd positive affirmations; it's empowering, while it also encourages each of us to start by looking inwards. Change at a macro-level is not possible without individuals addressing their own outlooks, both as they consider the way they speak to and think about themselves, as well as hypocritical belief systems we play into and thus perpetuate. She doesn't ask us to blame ourselves, but rather to look honestly at the ideologies we've been brought up with, so as to dismantle them and rewire our brains to focus on radical self love.

I have read a substantial quantity of self-help books in my day, and therefore I thought I knew what sort of thing to expect with this book. I was so very wrong. The Body is Not An Apology is so much more than a self-help book. It's a call to action, inviting us to not only love our own bodies but also face up to the ways in which we have perpetrated acts of body terrorism.

When Sonya Renee Taylor talks about body shame and body terrorism, she isn't just referring to the guilt we feel for not being the right size. It's about more than size. Bodies are shamed and degraded for being anything outside of the 'default' body – the default being thin, white, able-bodied, cis, young, and hetero. As someone who presents as most of those things (I'm old and chonky, and identify as bi but am married to a man so it never really comes up) it sadly never occurred to me that body shaming goes beyond what size you are. She provides questions to ask yourself to identify where you might be unconsciously acting in ways that perpetuate body terrorism. I surprised myself with some of my answers, not realising the small ways in which I was adding to the problem. I had to take a deep breath and make a commitment to do better – but oh, what's this? An accompanying workbook to help along the way? Yes, please! But that's a separate review.

For anyone who's ever felt uncomfortable or unsafe in their own skin, or who wants to make the world a more inclusive and equal place for all bodies, this powerful and magnificent book by this powerful and magnificent woman is an absolute must-have.

The Body is Not An Apology was the book I needed. Sonya not only brought on body positivity and self love, but she brought on how race, disability, and sexuality are all intersecting into the many types of bodies. She coined a word that stuck with me throughout reading - "body terrorism," which is a term for prejudice against a person's body or their appearance and I believe we have all performed acts of body terrorism on someone. No one should be judged by their body.

"Fretting about the fifteen pounds you have been fretting about for fifteen years is a lighter load than paying down the $15,000 in credit card debt so you can finally start that business you always wanted" - is a quote from this book that is not only resonated with me immediately, but that I've used to reel in all of my friends to read this triumph of a book.

I wish everyone would read it. The world would be a better place. The revolutionary movement of radical self love will change so many mind and hearts.

It goes so far beyond "body positivity" (which is what my guess was it would be about) and really digs into the roots of where our isms come from.

I'm so glad I read this book. I'll be buying a physical copy just so i can pass it around to my friends who also need to read it. I feel empowered and amped up to start recognizing the spaces where I can make space for other folks, as well as a launching point for my own radical self love.

The book was incredibly readable and full of kind humor, and I love the later section that really broke down how we can apply these lessons for the greater shared liberation of everyone.

This book should be on the school syllabus. I will be recommending to all my friends.

It was easy to read but very informative and had the right balance of history, background, personal anecdotes and advice without coming across as very self help book like.

It was really interesting and I think purchasing as a hard copy would be much better than on kindle. Im looking forward to reading the activity book next.

Thank you for the arc.