koreanlinda's reviews
193 reviews

Beautiful and fast-paced visualization of adapted fairy tales. It is a pleasure for an evening read. 

too boring

I'm so glad that my local library had this book and I got to read it. My body is relatively able, but I still learned a lot that would help my understand of my own body (plus, of course, disabled bodies). The narrative is founded on the respect for individual differences in bodily needs, but it provides more specific information for bodily access assistance. There is a two page activity with questions that help you reflect on your sex preferences. I did it in my journal and realized that I am still holding back vital parts of my preferences from my life-long partner. I recommend this short and sweet, yet profound book to everyone regardless of their gender, sexuality, or body. 

I see Sonya’s naked body on the cover of the book. It has little emotional effect on me. I am used to seeing her naked body on her Instagram posts. She is consistent in showing up unapologetically with her body. 

When I thought of my body in connection to my mother’s and my deceased maternal grandmother’s, I immediately thought of Sonya’s book. I thought it was time for me to go beyond checking her IG posts and read her book in its full form. 

This book makes a stark contrast to the other book I have been reading: My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem. They both talk about healing through our bodies, but how they approach the topic were different. Sonya truly understands the intersectionality of body terrorism in regard to all shapes of identities. She tries to cover all marginalized groups in the United States and dedicates the last chapter in sharing strategies to fight against the specific oppression for each group. On page 91, Sonya informs her readers of the US governments’ killing of Jewish refugees during the World War II as well as the Asian immigrants’ suffering due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Meanwhile, as an Asian American, I constantly felt erased in Resmaa's book. He made it seem like racially-traumatizing interactions only take place among three groups of people in the US: Black, White, and Blue (police force). Or at least, they took the center stage. 

What both authors agree on is that healing begins within ourselves. Sonya quotes Lilla Watson, an Aboriginal Australian artist and activist, “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Because body terrorism resides in all bodies, we need to start with our own internalized body terrorism. (p.89)

Sonya adds further that internal transformation is only the beginning, quoting civil and labor rights activist Grace Lee Boggs. We should not stop at rebellion by expressing our emotions toward the oppressors. We need to go beyond rebellion toward revolution. If we do not confront the oppressive ideas in ourselves, when we achieve power, we will continue the oppressing acts of our predecessors. (p. 89)

There are more exquisite ideas found in this book. “Acknowledge intent while addressing impact” and “Take breaks for self-care,” just to share a couple in the guideline for radical self-love communication. 

Sonya truly gets it. She has experienced her quota of self-hate and has witnessed it a lot more in other people. I constantly have to recognize my self-hate when it occurs and have to redirect my thoughts toward self-love. I recommend this book to all people. Since the whole world has received influence from the Western world including its body-shaming culture and body hierarchy, everyone will benefit from understanding how it works in ourselves and in our culture. 

Review by Linda (she/they) in March 2023
Twitter @KoreanLindaPark
Essay writer at DefinitelyNotOkay.com 
Podcaster at AmericanKsisters.com

My hopes for this book was high after listening to an interview with Resmaa Menakem. In fact, I believe the trauma lives in our bodies and we need to heal it in order to make bigger changes, let alone any change. Disappointingly the merit of the book stops at this lesson. Here I will list the major reasons why I was disappointed by this book and why I recommend other books related to body-centered healing and racial justice. Please note that I skipped the chapters that are specifically written for certain groups of people (15-17, 20-22).

There are definitely good places in this book such as the concept of clean pain and dirty pain. The idea is quite similar to Buddhist teaching of accepting the life as a whole including suffering. There are books out there that do a better job of educating readers on these topics without erasing whole bunch of Americans and supporting US police. Here are three that I would like to recommend:

Review by Linda (she/they) in March 2023
Twitter @KoreanLindaPark
Essay writer at DefinitelyNotOkay.com 
Podcaster at AmericanKsisters.com

My close friend gifted this book to me, and at first, I balked at the crude and vibrant style of drawings. Soon I realized the surmountable power in the story it tells and now I declare it as an essential read for all people, especially women who experienced the violence the book entails. 

I personally did not know the word "vulva" until I read this book. I was calling the whole genital "vagina," which is technically inaccurate. I quickly forgave my ignorance because the book explained my ignorance was caused by intentional erasure of vulvas. The extent that men in power have gone to diminish women's validity in our society through violating our bodies is exponential and horrifying. 

This can be a hard read for young adults, but I think high school students can handle it. I wish I read it myself at that age before I started internalizing all the toxic ideas about women's bodies. I highly recommend that you give it a read and gift it to a loved one. I will definitely keep it to read it time to time. In fact, it has a lot of information to digest like a history book. 

Review by Linda (she/they) in January 2023
Twitter @KoreanLindaPark
Essay writer at DefinitelyNotOkay.com 
Podcaster at AmericanKsisters.com

The book presented itself to me while roaming in a local library. I was in the middle of running a project with my writing class students on language use. My students, already multilingual in their home countries, were learning American English as community college students. I wanted to offer an opportunity for them to know that there is a variety of Englishes spoken in the United States, and all the languages they speak share equal values. It was my attempt to shatter the internalized misconception of some students who say, “I speak broken English” or “My English is bad.” 

Quiara Alegria Hudes turned out to be a friend of my partner who grew up in Philadelphia. His family still lived in the vicinity of Philadelphia, and through yearly visits, I got to know about the region’s racial and ethnic diversity as well as its segregation. Hudes told me much more about it through her personal stories. But I got more than mere information about Philly’s populations; I got affirmed for what I had been doing myself—telling my story. Hudes talks about the Perez women from her Puerto Rican mother’s side, and I talk about my people, Korean women. “By naming our pain and voicing our imperfections, we declare our tremendous survivals.”

Hudes also talks about the disparity between life with her family in North Philly and one at her elite schools, Yale and then Brown. While studying “white” music—Western classical—at Yale, Hudes missed her hometown music: at funerals, at graveside visits, at praise ceremonies, at after-work hangs, during morning showers, or from cars rolling by. In contrast to her classmates who grew up with English-speaking parents and grandparents with advanced degrees, Hudes’ elders were educated in various languages, inconsistently. Instead of verbal communication, other means took the main stage in her family’s connection: dancing, ass-slapping, cooking, eating, hair-dressing, and banging a pot to beats. 

At the end of the book, Hudes brings back the significance of the Perez women’s bodies. Although White society deems them fat, they celebrated their bodies as living proof of their survival. Despite their disconnection from the homeland and earth, they carried all their spirits in “one human-size patch of the earth”: their bodies. 

Review by Linda (she/they) in January 2023
Twitter @KoreanLindaPark
Essay writer at DefinitelyNotOkay.com 
Podcaster at AmericanKsisters.com

It was a great read. I studied linguistics before, and this book put me into a linguist's mind again. However, I think you can follow along even if you have not studied linguistics before. You will learn a lot along the way. I did not understand everything mostly because I was interested in the story of people who invented languages than the languages themselves.