CHEEKY

A New York City–based illustrator's graphic memoir about the "head-to-toe reboot" that helped her "recalibrate and reconnect" to her own body.

In her debut, Elovic transforms what began as an Instagram project, which she undertook in order to combat the way women "reject our own bodies," into a refreshing story about corporeal self-love. She dedicates each chapter to a single body part and recollections of her changing attitudes about that part. The author begins with happy childhood memories of her face and how she loved contorting her features in the mirror for fun. As she grew older and watched pimples erupt on her skin and hair thicken above her mouth, the mirror became a "black hole of critique.” Other bodily changes—e.g., the development of her breasts—were both "thrilling and shocking.” But those changes also forced her to contend with social conventions, like the bras that were supposed to "make me more of a woman" but only made her feel entrapped, and her stomach also became a source of humiliation. As a child, she boasted that her stomach could hold massive amounts of cake, but by adolescence, she became painfully aware that "weight and size" would determine her worth in the eyes of others. She joined Weight Watchers, which “sucked the joy out of food.” Elovic also struggled with the supposed unfeminine act of defecation (“according to teen magazines, pooping was the most shameful thing a girl could do”) as well as her menstruation, which often went “fucking rogue.” Eventually, the author found support among "the Yentas,” a group of young Jewish women that "encouraged me to take joy" in every "gross" part of her body. Featuring colorful folk art–style paintings that transform uncomfortable bodily facts and functions into charmingly humorous images, this book encourages women to help each other accept all their "hairs and jiggles and bumps and smells" for what they are: essentially human.

An entertaining, jubilantly body-positive memoir.