Appetites

Appetites

2003 • 224 pages

Ratings2

Average rating4.5

15

It's unfortunate that this book gets pegged as an “anorexia memoir”–even by a blurb on the cover, because it's also/instead a fantastic analysis of some particular flavors of cultural misogyny, both external and internalized. That said, Knapp does an amazing job of weaving in her personal experience to make most of what she says even more engaging.

Combining memoir and analysis can get tricky–oftentimes authors tend to overgeneralize, or get too caught up in the particulars of their own story to make any general critiques at all, but Knapp walks the line in a particularly graceful way (her writing reminds me of bell hooks' Wounds of Passion). I'm only halfway through, but this is one that I will read again and again, and should be on any feminist's bookshelf.