BOOK | Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass by Jes Baker
This is the first book I picked up and actually finished in over a year.
I just need to sit with that statement for a moment.
🤔
The reality of this still baffles me. That I could not partake in something I thoroughly enjoy (reading a book) for over a year. At the start of the pandemic (early 2020), something in me just... broke, and I couldn’t do anything anymore – which is the sad reality of why I’ve hardly had any new content on The Rachel Perspective in a long time. But alas, something about Landwhale spoke to me. Jes Baker spoke to me.
One of my first book reviews on here was Jes Baker’s Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls back in 2016. It was also, I believe, my first body positivity piece of literature I ever read AND my post to date with the most likes/reblogs to its name. It was many things, but the important fact was that I loved it. It was a great book that solidified aspects of my own personal journey with my self-image, beyond what I had already achieved on my own. But what Things No one Will Tell Fat Girls did from a self-help and statistical aspect (it was, after all, subtitled as a “guide”), Landwhale instead approaches from the more cold-hearted truths of being a fat girl. Where her debut novel was chalk full of lists and ways to help yourself love your body, the sophomore novel delves into the reality that existing in this world – for everyone – is actually really f*cking hard.
At the beginning of Landwhale, Jes includes a trigger warning. For the whole book. While I fortunately did not really feel any triggered responses from the topics she discussed take heed of the trigger warning, I fully understand how a lot of the material could be unnerving. This time around, it wasn’t just another “I’m a fat girl, hear me roar” set of essays about the struggles every fat girl has come to experience time and time again. You know, those usual struggles with clothing/fashion, bullies, etc. Here, instead – and seriously, I applaud Jes so so much for this – she covers the mental health side of the struggles more in depth, like the self-deprecation, the problems that arise within the fat community itself, the doubts and fears when in a relationship (especially when your significant other is smaller in stature). Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls skimmed the surface of the basic troubles of a plus-size individual and her approaches to combating those issues; Landwhale, however, dove more deeply into that tough material. But honestly, I’m so glad she did this. It all needs discussing because, truthfully, so many people struggle with these things – myself included. And because has a background in mental health work, having been employed as a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist and is a credentialed peer support specialist and educator (in the state of Arizona)... well, needless to say, I trust what she says. Jes has proved time and time again that she not only lives the plus-size life and can speak from years of experience, she also is invested in helping others enough that she does this kind of work for a living. And maybe because I did feel like I related so much to Jes throughout Landwhale, it could be that I have some unrealized traumas that I never truly understood until now. Maybe the things people say around me (or to me) in relation to their bodies, to this day, still have a negative effect on my psyche despite any self-proclaimed positive, good-standing view towards my own body. Learning moment, y’all.
Although geared toward and obviously best suited for the fat community, Landwhale is still a great discussion for all of us living in our own bodies, just as it was with her first novel. Our bodies are ours and ours alone; we live for no one but ourselves. It is no one else’s place to discuss our bodies, nor dictate what the standards of beauty or health based upon them. Although, yes, many of the narratives are fat specific – not being able to partake in amusement park rides due to size constraints, equally the struggles of airplane travel, or medical professionals only trying to “cure” your obesity rather than the ailment you actually met with them for – there are still anecdotes that everyone could benefit from. Important conversations about capitalism, diet culture, fatphobia, even questions about what is considered “acceptable body alterations” in relation to body positivity.
What we must remember is this: “Let people own their own journey while remaining steadfast in yours.” We are all, after all, human.
