Appetites: Why Women Want

Rating:
Summary: Appeties:Why Women Want
Review:
The book Appetites: Why Women Want, written by the late author Caroline Knapp, is an antidote to our culture's obsession with beauty and women's body-image. It is hard to believe that such a book, published in 2003 has only recently been written. The book contains simple but necessary ideas concerning women and the obsessions we are prone to face: material possessions, relationships, and eating disorders. Though the book definitely has an intended audience of women, it cannot be categorized as a feministic book. There is no lecture. Knapp speaks to her audience simply and slowly, allowing her ideas to get across thoroughly to the reader.
The memoir recalls of Knapp's childhood, growing up a perfectionist who got straight A's and her difficult relationship with her parents which all lead to her eventual eating disorder, anorexia, that she formed in college. Knapp watched her mother be an ideal late-fifties housewife-"she did all the grocery shopping, all the laundry, all the cleaning and cooking", yet "at the same time, she was one of the most intelligent and well-informed women I've ever known". Then, later on in life, she talks of her father having an affair, her own affair with a teacher, and then watching her boyfriend move across the country. It is a common and realistic story in people's lives, a story any reader can relate to in one form or the other. The fact that this is all true allows the reader, the woman, to find their story. Caroline Knapp says things without really explaining them, referring to examples that allow the reader to apply the book to their life more easily-"Obsessions-even mild ones, even the run-of-the-mill, mundane daily obsessions that can pepper a woman's thoughts (Do these jeans make my butt look too big? Should I go to the gym?)-have such extraordinary deflective power." Knapp explores familiar people in her life--"the woman who insisted that weight is `not really an issue', for instance, also noted that she only allows herself to eat dessert, or second helpings at dinner, if she's gone to the gym that day." These are women that any reader can share with, and what Knapp is pointing out is the complete bombardment with self-image, with weight, with pleasure, with denying-"What liberates a person enough to indulge appetite, to take pleasure in the world, to enjoy being alive? Within that question lies the true holy grail, the heart of a woman's hunger."
The book is important and special because the idea Knapp talks of pertains to every woman's life. As a female, we all have friends or mothers or siblings who think they are too fat or too skinny or are too promiscuous or constantly compare themselves to others. Our culture and media is saturated with the ideal body type, a body type which hardly any women can relate to. Knapp is getting to the heart of this situation-why we must do so or be so-always wanting to be someone else or achieve something "better". In a world filled with fashion magazines and diet books, Appetites: What Women Want is brilliant and revolutionary.


Rating:
Summary: A profound and insightful voyage of self-discovery
Review: Appetites: Why Women Want is Caroline Knapp last book (she died in June 2002 at the age of forty-two). Appetites is an openly personal testimony by a survivor of anorexia concerning a culture determined and dedicated to shape and control women's physical and emotional desires, -- and wresting with what it truly means to feed the body and soul. Whetting appetites for food, work, love, or pleasure, Appetites: Why Women Want fully engages the reader in a profound and insightful voyage of self-discovery.

Rating:
Summary: This is a book to buy for your sisters and daughters
Review: By any scale, I've been a fortunate and successful woman. I deeply enjoy my work, have the opportunity to think deeply, have good health, loving family and children.
This book was originally a recommendation from a friend, one of those 'think you might like it' things, that sat on the table. Why would I be interested?
Opening it, reading it and being stuck almost motionless by recognition of deep truths has changed that attitude. I'm ordering 5 copies. Young, middle-aged and older women need to read this book and think about it. Both to appreciate the stresses and strains that our mothers experienced, and to realize the residual effect on our lives. Share this book, pass it along to others, it is important.

Rating:
Summary: Caroline Knapp is a must read
Review: Caroline Knapp clearly has been through a lot. Her writing is honest andfor the most part non-judgemental. This was the first books I read by Knapp and I simply started reading it when I picked it up by chance at a local bookstore. I ended up reading all of her books. But appetites is my favorite because it deals with so many issues under the "food" topic. I recommend it to everyone, for women to re-think and to menso that they can better understand and relate. Overall it was a great read. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Caroline Knapp is a must read
Review: Caroline Knapp clearly has been through a lot. Her writing is honest andfor the most part non-judgemental. This was the first books I read by Knapp and I simply started reading it when I picked it up by chance at a local bookstore. I ended up reading all of her books. But appetites is my favorite because it deals with so many issues under the "food" topic. I recommend it to everyone, for women to re-think and to menso that they can better understand and relate. Overall it was a great read. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Why women would want to read Appetites
Review: Caroline Knapp was an intelligent presence in contemporary nonfiction. Her lyrical self-questioning voice will be missed. What I found myself missing most from Appetites was more of the straightforward personal narrative that appeared in her earlier works. Appetites combines this type of narrative with a more academic look at the causes of and institutions that reinforce anorexia. Knapp, when she is bravely telling her own (not so unique) story, is at her best and the writing is both beautiful and painful. The more general parts of the book could have (and have) been written by any numbers of writers.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent sociological commentary and compelling story
Review: Knapp does an excellent job of weaving in her personal struggles with research and social commentary. She is not willing to simply say, "I wanted control, so I was anorexic." She realizes that there are many pieces to this puzzle, a puzzle that must be put together if our young women are to flourish.

She excels at digging into the myths of our society and the conditions that create an atmosphere ripe for addictions of appetite.

One thing this book lacks is solutions, but at least she was willing to ask the questions.

Rating:
Summary: Sorrow and Satisfaction
Review: More pragmatic than Kathryn Harrison, more emotional and romantic than Naomi Wolf, Caroline Knapp had the rare ability to lay bare her most elemental struggles as a woman of her generation, expanding the personal to a breadth of understanding that encompasses us all. I read her earlier book, "Drinking: A Love Story" years ago--largely in an effort to understand my own mother's alcohol addiction; confronted with issues of my own, I recently sought out this volume again, and was surprised and shocked to learn that Ms. Knapp had died, just after completing "Appetites". It came, however, as no surprise to me that she would have turned her attention to a broader scope of hunger and addiction, as I myself--and every woman in my immediate family--has battled both disordered drinking AND eating patterns. I devoured most of the book within 2 or 3 days--then spent over 2 weeks navigating the final chapters, as I was reduced to tears at the close of almost every paragraph. I found myself spilling copious quantities of ink both underlining and adding margin notes, so familiar was the language, the experiences she chronicled. I was particularly moved and impressed by the fashion in which she used intensely personal material as a starting place for a more scholarly investigation of the subject matter at hand; the book, which reads like a memoir, is nonetheless exhaustively researched and supported with extensive footnotes. I recommend it passionately to anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by choice, exhausted by freedom, shamed by a hunger that seems insatiable.

Rating:
Summary: A Searing, Soulful Look at Women's Deepest Urges
Review: Oh, Caroline Knapp will be missed.
"Appetites" is a powerful and profound exploration of her battle with anorexia in her twenties. She weaves the stories of other female bulemics and anorexics throughout her own-and also of other women with deep obsessions and cravings that lead to such behaviors as promiscuity, alcoholism, spending wildly, and shop lifting. What are they really hunger for, she asks. Love, acceptance, security? She writes with grace and force. The reader confronts these issues with her, but she eases them into the debate. And then he or she is engaged.
Knapp explores the emotional, psychological, and cultural reasons that drive American women to such behaviors. She has a softer, gentler voice than most feminists and she does not indict men for the most part. But she does blame society. It's interesting-most pop psychologists would diagnose some of the behaviors she describes as examples of an "obsessive compulsive disorder" (anorexia is a manifestation of it in many cases). Yet she doesn't use that term once in the book-in many ways, she digs even deeper for the causes than simply a diagnosis. She analyzes what triggers the disease.
I would recommend this book for most women, even if you haven't had an eating disorder. We all have appetites. I wouldn't recommend it for most men, except those who like women issue books or know someone who is anorexic.

Rating:
Summary: A Searing, Soulful Look at Women's Deepest Urges
Review: Oh, Caroline Knapp will be missed.
"Appetites" is a powerful and profound exploration of her battle with anorexia in her twenties. She weaves the stories of other female bulemics and anorexics throughout her own-and also of other women with deep obsessions and cravings that lead to such behaviors as promiscuity, alcoholism, spending wildly, and shop lifting. What are they really hunger for, she asks. Love, acceptance, security? She writes with grace and force. The reader confronts these issues with her, but she eases them into the debate. And then he or she is engaged.
Knapp explores the emotional, psychological, and cultural reasons that drive American women to such behaviors. She has a softer, gentler voice than most feminists and she does not indict men for the most part. But she does blame society. It's interesting-most pop psychologists would diagnose some of the behaviors she describes as examples of an "obsessive compulsive disorder" (anorexia is a manifestation of it in many cases). Yet she doesn't use that term once in the book-in many ways, she digs even deeper for the causes than simply a diagnosis. She analyzes what triggers the disease.
I would recommend this book for most women, even if you haven't had an eating disorder. We all have appetites. I wouldn't recommend it for most men, except those who like women issue books or know someone who is anorexic.