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The Bigger the Better, the Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards of Being Female 
Rating:  -
I go through reading spurts and I'm on one now. Just before reading two Holocaust books ("Suite Francaise" and "Thanks to My Mother") back to back, I'd completed all the stories in TBTB,TTTS. I want to go back. Back to laughing, pondering, and remembering with a queasy anxiety. Adrianne Bee's 'Around the Bend' so aptly recollects a preteen's awkward forays in love, preteen friendship and one's body that I found myself picturing my own horrifying adolescent embarrassments with amused retrospective clarity. Bravo, ladies for daring to write with such honesty and humor about things that may not seem so humorous at the time in ways that allows any woman to say, 'she understands!'
Rating:  -
Reasons for me to read a book: compelling topic, great story, beautiful writing, outrageous humor. I found a bit of each of these qualities in TBTB,TTTS where twenty-one women take on topics that Oprah has yet to deal with. Like Oprah, these women deal with issues of body and health that have the quality of feeling unique to the individual, causing embarassment or pain, yet are shared by many of us. Enfolded in "shared uniqueness" are the seeds of humor. There is something fundamentally funny about discovering we are not alone. That is why we laugh with the women in TBTB,TTTS who dare to share their uniqueness.
I find the sub-title more compelling than the title -- I struggle with the grammar of the first part of the title -- it isn't right and I don't know how to fix it.
Some of the stories feel incomplete. I still don't know what African American boobies are. I missed the point of some -- failing to see a groundbreaking epiphany in a detailed psychotherapy session filled with too many words. On the other hand, Jennifer D. Munro and Patricia Bunin contribute tightly written pieces filled with pathos and humor. They tell me all I need to know, yet leave me wanting to hear more.
TBTB,TTTS has the typical qualities of an anthology -- some stellar pieces and some that feel like padding. The good ones make the book a worthwhile read.
The Bigger the Better, the Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards of Being Female
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