Convinced that she is a victim of a society that will never accept her, Madison is at the breaking point. She wishes she knew how to change the prejudice she faces as a full figured woman. She fears that she will never be accepted as beautiful, and her fear is holding her back from knowing her own value. Reading over the entries in the diary that has been her lifelong companion and confidante, she comes to realize that she understands pain more than love. Her dark experiences as a child now impact her life as a teenager. She feels awkward in her own curves, and being constantly reminded that she's not perfect isn't helping. Even so, she's really an average teenager, dealing with the usual problems-boys, friends, and even accidentally ending up in a different country. She does find some hope-Liam, her own handsome Prince Charming, has entered her life. But when she learns that this new hope in her life is endangered by a cancer diagnosis for Liam, she struggles for strength. What if the worst happens? Can her heart survive the grief? Like her peers, Madison's life is lived on the edge of hope, fear, and acceptance. And like everyone, all she wants is to be happy and be loved for who she really is. Can she find the strength to create a "happy ever after" despite everything that's going on?
Convinced that she is a victim of a society that will never accept her, Madison is at the breaking point. She wishes she knew how to change the prejudice she faces as a full figured woman. She fears that she will never be accepted as beautiful, and her fear is holding her back from knowing her own value. Reading over the entries in the diary that has been her lifelong companion and confidante, she comes to realize that she understands pain more than love. Her dark experiences as a child now impact her life as a teenager. She feels awkward in her own curves, and being constantly reminded that shes not perfect isnt helping. Even so, shes really an average teenager, dealing with the usual problemsboys, friends, and even accidentally ending up in a different country. She does find some hopeLiam, her own handsome Prince Charming, has entered her life. But when she learns that this new hope in her life is endangered by a cancer diagnosis for Liam, she struggles for strength. What if the worst happens? Can her heart survive the grief? Like her peers, Madisons life is lived on the edge of hope, fear, and acceptance. And like everyone, all she wants is to be happy and be loved for who she really is. Can she find the strength to create a happy ever after despite everything thats going on?
It's easy to poke fun at the latest weight-loss scheme, but when you're struggling with a poor body image you're willing to try anything that promises results. Such was the case for Lisa Sargese when, at the age of twenty-three, she became one of the first in the United States to receive the adjustable gastric band as part of a 1988 experiment group. Unfortunately, the very thing she thought would solve her problems only made them worse. Frankly recounting her weight-loss surgeries and resulting complications, Losing 140 Pounds the Hard Way follows Lisa on her difficult journey to recovery-not to a certain weight, but rather to a holistic understanding and acceptance of her body that goes beyond dress sizes or gym hours. Both a memoir and a manual, this book will change the way you think about food, fitness, and yourself. Learn the art of affirmation, discover how to respond gently to your body's needs, and then watch how improving your emotional well-being helps your physical body, inside and out.
In Big Apple Diaries, a heartfelt diary-style graphic memoir by Alyssa Bermudez, a young New Yorker doodles her way through middle school—until the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack leaves her wondering if she can ever be a kid again. It’s the year 2000 in New York City. For 12-year old Alyssa, a biracial Puerto Rican girl, this means all kinds of new challenges: splitting time between her dad's apartment in Manhattan and her mom's new place in Queens, navigating the ups and downs of middle school, harboring an epic crush on a new classmate, and figuring out how to be a "real" Puerto Rican. The only way to make sense of it all is to write and draw her thoughts and worries into her diary. Then life abruptly changes on September 11, 2001. After the Twin Towers fall and so many lives are lost, her concerns about gossip, crushes, and fashion feel distant and insignificant. Alyssa must find a new sense of self and purpose amidst all of the chaos, and find strength to move forward with hope. This moving graphic memoir is based on Alyssa Bermudez's own middle school diaries.
The funny, sad and compelling diary kept by an overweight teenage girl that became the basis for the British television sensation of the same name available to stream on HULU. It's 1989 and Rae Earl is a fat, boy-mad 17-year-old girl, living in Stamford, Lincolnshire with her mum and their deaf white cat in a council house with a mint green bathroom and a refrigerator Rae can't keep away from. She’s also just been released from a psychiatric ward. My Mad Fat Diary is the hilarious, harrowing and touching real-life diary Rae kept during that fateful year and the basis of the hit British television series of the same on HULU. Surrounded by people like her constantly dieting mum, her beautiful frenemy Bethany, her mates from the private school up the road (called “Haddock”, “Battered Sausage” and “Fig”) and the handsome, unattainable boys Rae pines after (who sometimes end up with Bethany...), My Mad Fat Diary is the story of an overweight young woman just hoping to be loved at a time when slim pop singers ruled the charts. Rae's chronicle of her world will strike a chord with anyone who's ever been a confused, lonely teenager clashing with her parents, sometimes overeating, hating her body, always taking herself VERY seriously, never knowing how positively brilliant she is and keeping a diary to record it all. My Mad Fat Diary – 365 days with one of the wisest and funniest girls in England.
First released in 2002, this provocative, critically acclaimed novel is now a major motion picture starring Bel Powley, Kristen Wiig, and Alexander Skarsgård. “I don't remember being born. I was a very ugly child. My appearance has not improved so I guess it was a lucky break when he was attracted by my youthfulness.” So begins the wrenching diary of Minnie Goetze, a fifteen-year-old girl longing for love and acceptance and struggling with her own precocious sexuality. After losing her virginity to her mother's boyfriend, Minnie pursues a string of sexual encounters (with both boys and girls) while experimenting with drugs and developing her talents as an artist. Unsupervised and unguided by her aloof and narcissistic mother, Minnie plunges into a defenseless, yet fearless adolescence. While set in the libertine atmosphere of 1970s San Francisco, Minnie's journey to understand herself and her world is universal: this is the story of a young woman troubled by the discontinuity between what she thinks and feels and what she observes in those around her. Acclaimed cartoonist and author Phoebe Gloeckner serves up a deft blend of visual and verbal narrative in her complex presentation of a pivotal year in a girl's life, recounted in diary pages and illustrations, with full narrative sequences in comics form. The Diary of a Teenage Girl offers a searing comment on adult society as seen though the eyes of a young woman on the verge of joining it. This edition has been updated by the author with an introduction reflecting on the book's critical reception and value as diary or novel, historical document or work of art. Also included in this revised edition are supplementary photographs and illustrations from the author's childhood, including some of her own diary entries. "Phoebe Gloeckner... is creating some of the edgiest work about young women's lives in any medium."—The New York Times "One of the most brutally honest, shocking, tender and beautiful portrayals of growing up female in America."—Salon "It's the most honest depiction of sexuality in a long, long time; as a meditation on adolescence, it picks up a literary ball that's been only fitfully carried after Salinger."—Nerve.com
Do you want to climb a mountain? Drive a fire engine? Become prime minister? Join the girls in the pages of this book to see the incredible things they do every day and find out what you might like to do, too! A picture book for every girl with a dream.
I feel that I have been sleeping all my life and I have woken up and opened my eyes to the world. A beautiful world! But impossible to live in. These are the words of fifteen-year-old Hadiya, blogging from the city of Mosul, Iraq, to let the world know what life is really like as the military occupation of her country unfolds. In many ways, her life is familiar. She worries about exams and enjoys watching Friends during the rare hours that the electricity in her neighborhood is running. But the horrors of war surround her everywhere—weeklong curfews, relatives killed, and friends whose families are forced to flee their homes. With black humor and unflinching honesty, Hadiya shares the painful stories of lives changed forever. “Let’s go back,” she writes, “to my un-normal life.” With her intimate reflections on family, friendship, and community, IraqiGirl also allows us to witness the determination of one girl not only to survive, but to create, amidst the devastation of war, a future worth living for. "Hadiya's authentically teenage voice, emotional struggles and concerns make her story all the more resonant." —Publishers Weekly “Despite all the news coverage about the war in Iraq, very little is reported about how it affects the daily lives of ordinary citizens. A highschooler in the city of Mosul fills in the gap with this compilation of her blog posts about living under U.S. occupation. She writes in English because she wants to reach Americans, and in stark specifics, she records the terrifying dangers of car bombs on her street and American warplanes overhead, as well as her everyday struggles to concentrate on homework when there is no water and electricity at home. Her tone is balanced: she does not hate Americans, and although she never supported Saddam Hussein, she wonders why he was executed... Readers will appreciate the details about family, friends, school, and reading Harry Potter, as well as the ever-present big issues for which there are no simple answers." —Hazel Rochman, Booklist “IraqiGirl has poured reflections of her daily life into her blog, reaching all over the cyber-world from her home in northern Iraq. She writes about the universals of teen life—school, family, TV, food, Harry Potter—but always against the background of sudden explosions, outbursts of gunfire, carbombs, death.… [A]n important addition to multicultural literature.” —Elsa Marston, author of Santa Claus in Baghdad and Other Stories About Teens in the Arab World “A book as relevant to adults as teenagers and children. Hadiya’s clear, simple language conveys the feelings of a teenager, offering a glimpse into the daily life of a professional middle-class Iraqi family in an ancient-modern city subjected to a brutal occupation.” —Haifa Zangana, author of City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance
The new superstars in sports are women, and pro beach volleyball player Gabrielle Reece is the hottest of them all. At six-foot-three, 170 pounds, Gabby Reece is at once beautiful and brutish, feminine and rowdy, accessible and intimidating--a woman who is exploding female stereotypes and redefining our image of the female athlete. "A young girl doesn't get many chances to exercise the character muscle via sports, whereas for young boys, it's part of their everyday lives. For girls, it's especially good for them to be forced to work as a team with other girls, to work together under every possible condition--winning, losing, tired, grumpy, happy. It forces them to deal with unpleasant, ungracious emotions and get over it. It forces girls to rely on each other. It gives them confidence in other girls, which ultimately gives them confidence in themselves." "Everything a woman does has an emotional component. Paying attention to my emotional side without surrendering to it is one of the toughest parts of playing professional sports." "I don't like this 'Fear of Being Big' thing because it feeds into the general female thing of wanting to be less--less powerful, less assertive, less demanding, less opinionated, less present, less big." From the Trade Paperback edition.
