Emily Ratajkowski is a model, actress, activist, entrepreneur, and writer. She has starred in David Fincher's Gone Girl, among other films. Ratajkowski has also appeared on the covers of multiple magazines and walked the runway for numerous high fashion brands. Her 2020 essay for New York magazine, "Buying Myself Back," garnered over one million views within twenty-four hours, was hailed as a landmark, and was the magazine's most-read piece of the year. My Body is her first book.
"My Body offers a lucid examination of the mirrors in which its
author has seen herself, and her indoctrination into the cult of
beauty as defined by powerful men. In its more transcendent
passages . . . the author steps beyond the reach of any 'Pygmalion'
and becomes a more dangerous kind of beautiful. She becomes a kind
of god in her own right: an artist."
--Melissa Febos, The New York Times Book Review
"A smart and glittering collection of essays . . . It's thrilling
to sit with Ratajkowski in the roiling surf of her life, in elegant
stories written with uncomfortable honesty. It's revelatory, too,
to explore digital life and body politics through the eyes of a
person whose body shapes a discourse, and unexpectedly moving to
see the bruises left behind."
--The Guardian "[My Body] challenges an either-or fallacy of
womanhood: that Ratajkowski can't have both a body and a brain,
can't be both appealing and incisive, can't have both a brand and a
book . . . Most of the essays oscillate between pride and
disenchantment with Ratajkowski's own beauty, especially as a means
of making money and attaining a restricted kind of social
capital."
--The Washington Post
"No stranger to discourse and scrutiny over women's bodies, Emily
Ratajkowski brings nuanced insight to questions about empowerment
versus commodification of women's bodies and sexuality. Blending
cultural criticism and personal stories, My Body is smart and
powerful."
--TIME "Raises thought-provoking questions . . . By unpacking the
paradoxes of capitalising on the male gaze in the Instagram era,
Ratajkowski offers a fresh perspective on an age-old problem."
--Financial Times "In My Body, Emily Ratajkowski reflects on her
fraught relationship with the huge number of photographs of her
body that have come to define her life and career . . . If
Ratajkowski is complicit in being looked at, the crime is ours for
looking."
--Andrea Long Chu, The New York Times Magazine "Thoughtful and
accessible . . . The anecdotes in My Body dramatise what is always
true, if often implicit: that women can neither fully escape nor
fully inhabit bodies that men are bent on appropriating."
--Becca Rothfeld, The Guardian "My Body chart[s] a sinuous path
through coming-of-age stories and meditations on capitalism and
power, female friendship, and finally motherhood. Ratajkowski
writes with an incisive vulnerability that can give way to images
of striking beauty."
--Larissa Pham, The Nation "A fascinating work: insightful,
maddening, frank . . . So astute on the subject of how her body is
interpreted . . . Ratajkowski is a graceful and thoughtful
writer."
--The Atlantic
"My Body is a memoir, but it's also a slow, complicated indictment
of a profession and the people who propel it. Ratajkowski doesn't
so much direct blame at any one person or organization as paint a
personal picture of what it was like for her to be young, naive,
ambitious, and smart--and to feel reduced, far too often, to a
collection of body parts."
--Vogue "Exacting . . . prescient . . . It's good business for
models to be aware of how they appear, but few have interrogated
the political implications of their body for them and for those who
consume it in the form of a book . . . [My Body] is a descent into
complication."
--Vanity Fair
"Soul-searching, revealing, and personal . . . A fascinating memoir
of objectification and misogyny [and] a searing work of cultural
criticism about sexuality, power, fame, and consumption, My Body is
the brilliant debut of a fearless multihyphenate from whom we're
eager to hear more."
--Esquire "Scalpel-scarp . . . Ratajkowski's raw book of essays
will change the way you see the supermodel. And, just maybe,
yourself."
--ELLE "An unflinching look at the commodification of female
sexuality--and one woman's fight back."
--People "Nuanced, perceptive, and brave as hell . . . A worthwhile
read that proves the author is here to stay."
--Shondaland
"A provocative curve ball, with absorbing essays on beauty and
consent."
--The Chicago Tribune "A set of complex, ambivalent, sometimes
funny, very sharp, and also cold and dark meditations on
representation and sex, embodiment, and capitalism . . . A very
finely honed and controlled literary object."
--Amia Srinivasan, author of The Right to Sex, Interview magazine
"I devoured My Body, a book describing an adolescence so contrary
to my own . . . Ratajkowski's honesty is refreshing . . . A
wonderful collection of essays, and not just because a model wrote
a book."
--Sarah Hagi, Gawker "Relentlessly brave . . . so important . . .
The conversation [about women and commodification and sexual
violence] is so heavily nuanced. And we, as a country, usually shy
away from nuance. My Body should be required reading."
--Lisa Taddeo, ELLE
"Make no mistake, My Body is excellent . . . Ratajkowski writes
with curiosity, intellect, and an acute awareness, even celebration
of, the thorny, messy web of contradictions that make up our
relationship with female bodies."
--Harper's Bazaar "Deeply honest and upsettingly familiar . . . My
Body is no "gotcha" of a memoir--it's a measured, introspective
study of a woman who, like many, has been perceived as an object
for as long as she can remember . . . It's also a gift to anyone
who's spent hours analyzing their reflection in the mirror or
allowed their preconceived notions of someone else affect their own
self-esteem. Jealous girls, this one's for you."
--InStyle "Fascinating . . . There are no neat resolutions in My
Body, but rather Ratajkowski weighing up where exploiting her image
has got her and confessing--with striking vulnerability--the agony
and ecstasy of being idolized."
--CNN Style "Ratajkowski's clean, clear writing . . . wrestles with
what it means to be conventionally attractive, both the good and
bad . . . There's hope in the positive thoughts about how strong
her body can be, how much it can do, how it's a beautiful tool. But
it's a tool nonetheless."
--Buzzfeed
"Anyone who says they aren't at least curious about Emrata's memoir
is lying."
--NYLON "Compulsively readable, digestible, and genuinely
page-turning . . . A must-read."
--theSkimm "Ratajkowski's My Body has the urgency of a note slipped
through the bars of a gilded cage. . . . The book is a reckoning
with a success that has brought its author pain as much as
pleasure. It is a critique of the ways we commodify the female
body, written by a woman whose body is among the most lucratively
commodified in the world."
--Esquire UK
"An intimate and accomplished essay collection that tackles big
questions about internalized misogyny, the male gaze, female
empowerment, and the commodification of sexuality . . . Enriched by
Ratajkowski's insider perspective on the modeling industry and her
willingness to wrestle with the power of the male gaze rather than
outright rejecting it, this is an astute and rewarding mix of the
personal and the political."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Nuanced . . . engaging . . . a reflective
coming-of-age-in-the-industry tale . . . The charm of this book
lies in [Ratajkowski's] relatable writing, which shows the complex
emotions and confusion of a young woman experiencing her sexual
development and maturation into a capable adult . . . a
refreshingly candid, fearless look into a model's body of work and
its impact on her identity and politics."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Thought-provoking . . . Ratajkowski doesn't shy away from
situations or thoughts that might paint her in a negative light and
it's this raw honesty that helps to create a self-portrait of
Ratajkowski as a whole, flawed person--something that she has
perhaps never been fully seen as before . . . In My Body,
Ratajkowski seems to have found a power that is finally all her
own."
--Sydney Morning Herald "These powerful essays mark a blazing,
unexpected literary debut. Emily Ratajkowski interrogates beauty,
sex, power, objectification, fame, and betrayal, by both self and
others, with lucidity and scorched-earth honesty. I read these
pages, breathless with recognition and the thrill of reading a new
voice telling it like it is."
--Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy,
Paternity, and Love "Forget what you know about Emily Ratajkowski.
In My Body, she investigates the double bind of sexuality and power
with a skillful eye for nuance and a noteworthy fearlessness. These
essays don't cut corners--we are all implicated in this web of
misogyny and objectification, even Ratajkowski herself. For all the
ways in which Ratajkowski's life is extraordinary, or the way in
which these stories will shock readers, My Body thrives on moments
when her experience as a woman--with its triumphs and missteps--is
resoundingly universal."
--Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter "Emily Ratajkowski's
first essay collection needs to be read by everyone. She explores
body politics--and the politics of her body--through a uniquely
feminist lens in stories that are both page turning and moving as
hell."
--Amy Schumer, author of The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo
"Reading My Body is to accompany an extraordinary individual and
activist, one who is deeply passionate and thoughtful, as she
navigates the joys and pains of life in a digital era. Our
experiences may be different, but Emily Ratajkowski's presentation
of diverse perspectives forges a path towards understanding."
--Tamika D. Mallory, co-founder, Until Freedom "In prose that is by
turns honey smooth and vicious, uproarious and wounded, Emily
Ratajkowski has captured the complicated terrain of having a body
people want to sell while having her own agenda she refuses to give
up. She knows the pain that lives in every woman and she isn't
afraid to link arms and say she's been there, and that it hurts.
This is the book for all women trying to place their bodies on the
map of consumption versus control, and all who want to better
understand their impulses. It left me much changed."
--Lena Dunham, author of Not That Kind of Girl
Ask a Question About this Product More... |