Rosie Molinary

From publisher: In Beautiful You author Rosie Molinary passionately encourages women—whatever their size, shape, or color—to work toward feeling wonderful about themselves despite today’s media-saturated culture. Drawing on self-awareness, creativity, and mind-body connections, Molinary incorporates practical techniques into a 365-day action plan that empowers women to regain a healthy self-image, shore up self-confidence, reframe and break undermining habits of self-criticism, and champion their own emotional and physical well-being. Through accessible, doable daily actions, women and girls learn to manifest a healthy outlook on life—teaching them to live large, and starting them on the path to learning to love themselves and others. Molinary steers clear of the florid affirmations and daily meditations often utilized by books geared toward personal growth, instead delivering a hip, modern guide of inspirational thought and action that keeps pace with the times. A practical, candid, and accessible handbook, Beautiful You strikes a chord with every woman who has ever faltered in her self-confidence or lost her personal brilliance—and it makes sure she never lets it happen again.… (lisätietoja)

Although this book was a very general overview of what it's like growing up Latina, trying to straddle two different cultures while remaining true to yourself, I'd still recommend it. What I liked most about this book was all of the great, realistic advice she gave about growing up, and finding and staying true to yourself, which are lessons I think that anyone could relate to and apply to their lives. It had a very down to earth tone, and it's actually a book I'd highly recommend to teens. I think I probably could have benefited very much from reading a book like this as a teenager and young adult. I found myself bending page corners all over the place while reading it so it's definitely one I'll come back to.

While reading this book I found myself really shocked by how much I could identify with the Molinary's and the other women's stories. Sometimes I forget how much I have in common with other non-black women of color, and how many shared experiences we have when it comes to race, ethnicity, culture and attempting to successfully navigate every day life. There are often many divisions between various people of color when, really, we have a lot more in common than we realize or would readily admit. And then, of course, there are lots of things that Latinas go through that I will never experience or fully understand because I am not Latina. Despite that, I still think it's important to read about other people's life experiences. It helps bridge gaps and it makes it a lot easier to understand where they're coming from. And not that it's all about YOU, but I also think you learn a lot about yourself and how you interact with others by reading about the lives and experiences of others.

I really wish it was an anthology, though. Whenever authors interview a selection of people and end up including only one or two lines from a few people's interviews in the book, along with generalized statements about what their interviewees told them, I get very annoyed. Especially since I'm usually very interested in what else the interviewees had to say. I also often suspect that the author is extrapolating when drawing their conclusions. Maybe not, but I can never be sure.… (lisätietoja)