Review: Landwhale by Jes Baker

Jes Baker (aka The Militant Baker) is seriously fucking funny. And she makes me cry. Basically, her writing manages to throw me from one end of the spectrum of human emotion to the other and back again. You might remember that I was a huge fan of Jes’s first book Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls, so it will probably come as no surprise that I pre-ordered my copy of her latest book Landwhale long before it came out.

It arrived and then I basically spent a few months being an anxious little eggplant (have you ever had rolling anxiety attacks for weeks on end? Not fun, let me tell you) and I just couldn’t face reading anything that might make me feel more fragile, so I shelved it for a wee while. You might think that sounds a bit strange, after all I usually find reading very therapeutic, but Jes so kindly put a piece at the start of her book saying that it covered some tough topics like self-hatred, eating disorders, fatphobia, embarrassing personal failure and diet talk. I knew that I wasn’t in a place where I would deal with some (any) of those things well and so in the interest of my own well-being it went on the back burner for a bit.

Recently I started feeling better, and I decided that it was time to make Landwhale the first book I read in 2019. Because why not start the year off reading words of wisdom from someone I think is pretty damn awesome, right? Honestly, I think this is the best thing I could have possibly done for myself. This was exactly the right time for me to read it, as evidenced by the fact that the entire way through the book I was nodding and thinking “holy shit, that’s so me” and “is Jes a mind reader or are we the same person?”.

Yes this is a memoir about Jes’ life as a fat woman, but so many of the experiences that she talks about are ones I’ve had too. They’re ones that a lot of fat people will have had and that’s why I think that Landwhale is such a magnificent book. From sex to body image, from various diets to the numerous shitty things that people can (and regularly do) say to or about fat people, Landwhale is not just about Jes Baker’s life experiences – so much of it is about the collective experiences that are familiar to many of us.

My favourite part of Landwhale was … all of it. Never before has a book made me feel so seen. There’s something about this book that reminds me that I’m not alone in all the bullshit (especially helpful when it seems to be everywhere at the moment), and it definitely helps that Jes has a way of writing that makes me feel like we’d be actual BFFs if we met. Probably not though because if you’ve ever met me in person you will have realised that I’m super fucking awkward, and I’m scared I’d make a real dick of myself.

SHOP IT: Landwhale by Jes Baker is available from Book Depository.

Is this on your reading list (or have you already read it?)