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Poor Little Sick Girls: A love letter to unacceptable women Paperback – August 20, 2024
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'Incredible insight with a transgressive, witty, spirit.' COURTNEY LOVE
'The most sensational read of 2022!' GEMMA COLLINS
'A breath of fresh air... I want so many people to read this!' TRAVIS ALABANZA
'Visionary' VIV ALBERTINE
A STYLIST MUST-READ FOR 2022
Wellness is oppressive, self-love is a trap, hustling is a health risk and it's all the patriarchy's fault. Poor Little Sick Girls is THE book for femmes who are online and want more from activism and life.
Ione Gamble never imagined that entering adulthood would mean being diagnosed with an incurable illness. Watching identity politics become social media fodder from the confines of her sickbed Ione began to pick apart our obsession with self-care, personal branding, productivity and #LivingYourBestLife.
Using her experience with disability to cast a fresh gaze on the particularly peculiar cultural moment in which young women find themselves, Poor Little SickGirls explores the pressures faced - as well as the power of existing as - a chronically ill, overweight, and unacceptable woman in our current era of empowerment.
Founder of Polyester zine and a host of The Polyester Podcast, Ione has been named one of fifteen coolest young Londoners by The EveningStandard, and a 2019 New Debutante in Tatler Magazine. If you love Trick Mirror, Feminists Don't Wear Pink and Hood Feminism, you don't want to miss this book.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDialogue Books
- Publication dateAugust 20, 2024
- Dimensions5 x 1 x 7.7 inches
- ISBN-10034970242X
- ISBN-13978-0349702421
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
A clear-sighted, critically needed skewering of hustle culture, wellness and modern feminism's blind spots, Ione pulls no punches in Poor Little Sick Girls. Everyone - and I mean everyone - should read this book.
A crystal-clear mirror held up to contemporary feminism . . . Ione Gamble examines feminism's fourth wave and its intersections with the internet and capitalism, to brilliant effect . . .Gamble inventively and accessibly explores the roots of feminism as it exists materially today.―i News
A sizzling insight into how tropes about sick women and unacceptable bodies have been constructed throughout history through a cultural and personal lens. Ione writes with warmth, honesty and nuance, inviting the reader into a conversation that has, up until now, been afforded little space for exploration.
A clear-sighted, critically needed skewering of hustle culture, wellness and modern feminism's blind spots, Ione pulls no punches in Poor Little Sick Girls. Everyone - and I mean everyone - should read this book.
A sizzling insight into how tropes about sick women and unacceptable bodies have been constructed throughout history through a cultural and personal lens. Ione writes with warmth, honesty and nuance, inviting the reader into a conversation that has, up until now, been afforded little space for exploration.
I inhaled Poor Little Sick Girls in one sitting. This book is smart, addictive, wry and insightful. At a time when online discourse feels so muddled, Ione manages to pick through the weeds with characteristic humour and nuance. This is the anti-girlboss Bible and I love it.
A thrilling exploration of the relationships between bodies, abstract forces like language and stereotypes, and the material conditions that shape young adults' lives. Ione Gamble's incisive analysis of the last 15 years of social media, pop culture, and online feminism both illuminate the sources of present-day challenges and model a more liberatory way forward. By tracing the pieces of her self to facets of her environment, she demonstrates how much of a responsibility we have to one another - and that, for all the cynical powers that make our world, we also have the power to remake ourselves.
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Dialogue Books (August 20, 2024)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 034970242X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0349702421
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5 x 1 x 7.7 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,921,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,626 in Feminist Theory (Books)
- #20,245 in Women's Biographies
- #56,213 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
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Ione is an editor and writer based in London. She is the Founding editor-in-chief of Polyester zine and the host of The Polyester Podcast.
With a focus on contemporary feminism, arts and culture and identity; she regularly freelance for both print and online publications, including Vice, Noisey, Huck Magazine Dazed, i-D, Riposte.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2024Repetitive "woe is me" ,life is unfair ideation. lost interest quickly - should be titled "Feel sorry for me" reading for non terminal illness requiring palliative or hospice care. Life sucks, just suck it up. you are not starving, living a war torn country, waiting for death. Feminism and chronic disease? the male population also has chronic illness. Aging brings chronic illness. For others to read this book- it promotes an endless okay mentality to be disabled when they are able bodied to work and function in society without excuses blaming society.
Top reviews from other countries
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 9, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Honestly mind blowing
It’s honest, incredibly intelligent food for thought that will change and inform your mind on things so many don’t say out loud. A must read for any woman, man or teen who wants to ‘get it’ so that they can take on the world a little more enlightened.
- Ms. J. CattierReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 21, 2023
4.0 out of 5 stars Gives voice to people suffering with chronic illness
This book helps chronically ill people feel seen and understood. The author shows how chronically ill people face both the limitations and pain of their condition but also how they have to do this within a society that is rigged against them. It isn’t that people are inherently ableist but because society aspires to the unrealistic ideals of optimum promoted by main stream media but especially social media.
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 2, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read!
A fresh perspective on a range of topics such as social class, feminism, social media etc. Ione navigates these topics throughout the book in such an engaging and humorous way that made it impossible to put down. A must read for everyone.
- Busy Lizzy1Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 30, 2024
2.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing.
This isn't a book about chronic illness (which was my hope when I bought it). It's a book about patriarchy, white supremacist able-bodied heteronormative capitalism hijacking the body positivity movement, with a sprinkling of how that impacts womens health. There's very little cohesion and every chapter feels like a continuation of the same ramblings. Like repetitive magazine opinion pieces that keeep reinforcing eact other.
A huge amount of complaint without pointing to the queer black fat femmes who are hugely popular and influential in the fat liberation movement, such as Sonya Renee Taylor, Megan Jayne Crabbe, Annemarie Brown, Aubrey Gordon.
There's some good science and important points, but they're over-egged and, again, could have been a lot more cohesive and seperated into dedicated chapters.
The majority of women who buy this book will already be well informed on consumerist and toxic body positivity culture, medical fatphobia and misogyny. They're living it. I really wish the rest of the book was a continuation of the first chapter, as there were some absolute golden nuggets where the author put into words the experience of chronic illness that I will gladly use to explain my own expereince, both for myself on bad days and for others on good days. Structurally, it's hard to enjoy irrespective of topics. It seems to meander without break. It could have been 3 times as many chapters with the same nulber of words. Again, really not cohesive and a lot of confirmation bias on the authors part when it comes to the body positivity movement and it's negative elements.
- Hannah LouiseReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 16, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars insightful, intelligent, incredible
I loved it - an insightful discussion of modern life and feminism through the lens of life with chronic illness. This book is so smart and thought provoking and does not pander to girl boss movement! I'd recommend to anyone