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    The Good Body
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    The Good Body
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    The Good Body
    Audiobook1 hour

    The Good Body

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Botox, bulimia, breast implants: Eve Ensler, author of the international sensation The Vagina Monologues, is back, this time to rock our view of what it means to have a "good body." "In the 1950s," Eve writes, girls were "pretty, perky. They had a blond Clairol wave in their hair. They wore girdles and waist-pinchers. . . . In recent years good girls join the army. They climb the corporate ladder. They go to the gym. . . . They wear painful pointy shoes. They don't eat too much. They . . . don't eat at all. They stay perfect. They stay thin. I could never be good."

    The Good Body     starts with Eve's tortured relationship with her own "post-forties" stomach and her skirmishes with everything from Ab Rollers to fad diets and fascistic trainers in an attempt get the "flabby badness" out. As Eve hungrily seeks self-acceptance, she is joined by the voices of women from L.A. to Kabul, whose obsessions are also laid bare: A young Latina candidly critiques her humiliating "spread," a stubborn layer of fat that she calls "a second pair of thighs." The wife of a plastic surgeon recounts being systematically reconstructed-inch by inch-by her "perfectionist" husband. An aging magazine executive, still haunted by her mother's long-ago criticism, describes her desperate pursuit of youth as she relentlessly does sit-ups.

    Along the way, Eve also introduces us to women who have found a hard-won peace with their bodies: an African mother who celebrates each individual body as signs of nature's diversity; an Indian woman who transcends "treadmill mania" and delights in her plump cheeks and curves; and a veiled Afghani woman who is willing to risk imprisonment for a taste of ice cream. These are just a few of the inspiring stories woven through Eve's global journey from obsession to enlightenment. Ultimately, these monologues become a personal wake-up call from Eve to love the "good bodies" we inhabit.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateNov 9, 2004
    ISBN9780739315026
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Good Body

    4/5

    83 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I love this book. As a male it's very hard to understand the female mind but I feel like these vignettes told by women from different background are very poignant and help me see the female perspective. There's not so much explanation as to why women tend to be so insecure about their bodies, but it definitely shows the depth of the insecurity. How wide-reaching it is.
    • 5/5
      Eve Ensler is absolutely phenomenal. This play speaks to anyone who has ever been insecure in their own body, an audience that encompasses most, if not all, of the planet. This was a great quick-read that really puts body issues into perceptive. I think my favorite part was Leah's section. I loved the metaphor she gave on loving one's own body. Overall, this was an interesting read that helps to clear away some of the shame and guilt that we all feel about our physical appearances and brings its audience that much closer to true body acceptance. It was a wonderful read.
    • 2/5
      Ensler discusses why she stopped exercising like a madwoman to fit some skewed standard of beauty.
    • 4/5
      I love this book. As a male it's very hard to understand the female mind but I feel like these vignettes told by women from different background are very poignant and help me see the female perspective. There's not so much explanation as to why women tend to be so insecure about their bodies, but it definitely shows the depth of the insecurity. How wide-reaching it is.
    • 2/5
      I agree with the reviews by Raven and PhoebeReading. It's a wonderful topic and a worthy endeavor, but not well executed. It's a very short book (I was happy I borrowed it rather than buying it) and easy to read and understand in one sitting. If you've read or seen the Vagina Monologues the tone/style will be familiar. Again, the topic is interesting, but really nothing terribly new, you'd get the same information from an intro women studies or feminist blog.
    • 1/5
      While I agree with the general premise of this book (women are too hard on their bodies), it was really lacking meat. It felt like most of the anti-body philosophies weren't really disputed until the very end, and that felt hastily slapped on. Also, Eve Ensler's voice doesn't really change at all, no matter who's speaking--everyone sounds like a sixteen-year-old-girl-trying-to-sound-like-a-grown-up. For the same meal with a little more fat, pick up Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth.
    • 4/5
      In a culture where external beauty has increasingly become a measure of a woman's worth to the world and her worth to herself, Ensler's The Good Body serves as a powerful reminder that women should love their bodies and stop trying to fix every perceived flaw. This piece isn't nearly as good as The Vagina Monologues, but it's still good and worth reading.