Weetzie Bat

Before I start I need to apologize. This isn't a favorable review, and I know we sometimes can take very personally when someone dislikes a book that we treasure. I hope that this can be read as simply my honest opinion of a BOOK, not of anyone who reads it or enjoys it, or recommends it to someone else. It's JUST a book review, and nothing personal.

I am hoping that no one writes me off as a right-wing conservative, bigot at the end of this review, but you might, and that's okay. We're all entitled to our opinions. Let me start out by saying that it isn't the elements you would think that bother me most about this book. On the outside it has cutesy pink cover and the innocent, and prevalent theme that unconditional love conquers all. I'll be the first to say that I think we could all do with a lot less judgment and a lot more love. What bothers me most about this book is that it glamorizes a lifestyle that is dangerous and often deadly and is marketed to young adults. The lifestyle of free love, partying, underage drinking and illegal substance abuse is made to look fun and fancy free on the streets of L.A, as long as you have a good friend and a funky sense of style. Even an episode that can be described as no less than a date rape is glossed over as "just another thing that happens when you live the glam life."
When my young daughters saw the cover they all eagerly asked to read this book. At ages 9, 8 and 7 it is easily within their abilities to do so. It appalls me to consider that little girls are picking up this book everyday and learning that it's alright to make poor choices as long as you're cool and open minded. I hope that somehow the author was so caught up in the idea of making what society calls a typically unlovable lifestyle more acceptable that she didn't consider the deeper and more dangerous messages she was sending.
In my mind, the market for this book is absolutely unconscionable. It's not a book I will be recommending to anyone.

Why I Wore Lipstick for Think Pink Dana

My first completed book for this challenge is: Why I Wore Lipstick to my Mastectomy by Geralyn Lucas, from Think Pink Dana's original list. She actually chose another book after this was a choice, but this is the one I found first. I'll try to catch the other one, The Five Gifts of Illness, another time.

I've known Dana online for several years now, and for the longest time all I really knew about her was that she was younger and cuter than I am, that she mothered little girls as do I, that she was a minister's wife as I was---and that she was a breast cancer survivor. Her email signature line has always said something like, "Young women can and do get breast cancer...and survive! Surviving and thriving since 1996." I've read her blog with her cancer story, and it is nothing short of amazing. Through the years I've learned more about her: her strength, her hunger for God's word, her desire to serve God, her compassion, her intolerance for silliness and unnecessary drama. She challenges me often to reexamine what I think and believe about things. I am proud to call her my friend.

Lucas's book was, in many ways, an echo of Dana for me. I am glad I read this book, because I feel it gives good insight into what it is like for a young woman in today's society facing the loss of something profoundly and foundationally female: a breast. I have always had respect for Dana, and this book only served to remind me of what she has gone through.

Cancer, that evil in a cell, manifests in many forms. It claims lives like my friend Nattie's; it claims breasts and portions of breasts; it crops up in the most unexpected places. But it can never conquer the human spirit, and it will never, EVER, conquer God.

Originally posted at: http://freshbrewedwriter.blogspot.com/2007/08/something-about-me-book-1.html
Author's Web Site: http://www.whyiworelipstick.com/