Body Talk: How to Embrace Your Body and Start Living Your Best Life

Think of your funniest, smartest, most self-deprecating female friend. The one you can talk to about anything and trust that she will always tell the truth. If you can’t imagine that person, let me introduce you to Katie Sturino and her book Body Talk.

There were moments I had to put this book down because it was too familiar. Mean childhood nicknames, well-meaning adults whose attention to my changing body made me feel terrible, the horror of realizing clothes meant for my age group didn’t fit me. Yep, yep, and yep. Sturino uses her personal experiences and revelations to encourage readers to give up the battle against their body and free up that time for literally anything else.

Part self-help book, part memoir, part workbook, Body Talk is an invitation to examine your own relationship with your body and to accept it as it is right now. There were moments when it seemed to omit some important details, such as the fact that the nearly six-foot-tall Sturino has a proportioned body that is in line with traditional beauty standards. Yet, the overall message is that none of us are perfect and perhaps we should just stop trying to be. No one is going to call the police if we wear sleeveless tops or shorts in the summer heat, and no one will be harmed by our bodies being present in the world.