Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2478 KP) rated The Dark Wind in Books
Aug 14, 2025
While this is the fifth book in the series, and the second to feature Jim Chee, it reads like a standalone, with little from the previous book being brought up here. That isn’t to say that the characters are bad, it’s just a difference in storytelling from what we get today. I found the characters pulled me in. The mystery was strong with plenty to keep me guessing and a red herring that distracted me. Yet the ending was logical. As always, the landscape and culture came to life. I’m looking forward to more.
Shadows Across the Moon: Outlaws, Freaks, Shamans and the Making of Ibiza Clubland
Helen Donlon and Richie Hawtin
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Once a fabled pirate garrison, the Balearic island of Ibiza has been colonised and continually...
The Roots of Pope Francis's Social and Political Thought: From Argentina to the Vatican
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In The Roots of Pope Francis's Social and Political Thought Thomas R. Rourke traces the development...
In Bed with Wall Street
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The 2008 financial crisis brought the US to its knees, and spawned nationwide protests against the...
Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World's Games, 1896 - 2020
John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold
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The first edition of Olympic Cities, published in 2007, provided a pioneering overview of the...
When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World
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China will replace the United States as the world's dominant power. In so doing, it will not become...
The Chief Talent Officer: The Evolving Role of the Chief Learning Officer
Jack J. Phillips, Patricia Pulliam Phillips and Tamar Elkeles
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In the face of rapid changes and challenges to the business environment, learning and talent are key...
The Creative City: Vision and Execution
James Doyle and Biljana Mickov
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The Creative City: Vision and Execution, edited by James E. Doyle and Biljana Mickov, challenges the...
Steph (468 KP) rated Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women in Books
Jul 9, 2018
The book is told through a mixture of psychology research and stories told by real women. The mix of facts and anecdotes was perfect. You got the knowledge and science behind beauty sickness. But you also heard the voices of women tell their own tales in a very human and relatable way.
What is absolutely terrifying and shows how beauty sick our culture really is, is that while reading this book, I often felt like I should be engaging in the negative behaviors that were discussed. For example, hearing about how people use special software to edit their photos before posting on social media made me consider doing that before posting my next photos!
But this book also changed the way I think of myself and my body in a positive way. I thought I knew about the negative effects of the media on body image, especially as a psychologist myself. I was unprepared for how little I actually knew, especially when it came to misconceptions about our bodies and how we treat them. I read the chapter on shame and started crying, because I related to so much of it. I didn't realize that I was trying to motivate myself to lose weight by shaming myself into feeling bad about my weight and what I was eating until I read this book. Beauty Sick has changed the way I think about myself and given me new strategies for cultivating a positive self-image and loving my body.
I loved that the section on what we can do about beauty sickness was so extensive. It really opened my eyes to how I think about and treat my body as well as what I can do differently to improve my self-image. I've always hated exercising. I never realized that the reason I hated it was probably because I always thought the point was to lose weight. Exercising felt like a punishment to me- something I had to do so I could shave off a few pounds. I never thought about viewing through a "look what I can do!" lens or to think about what I might have fun doing instead of what I *should* be doing.
I read this book ravenously- staying up late to read just one more chapter and sneaking pages in at work to devour its content. I needed to hear both how beauty sick our culture is and what I can do about it. I think every woman would personally benefit from reading this book. I hope its message becomes widespread and that we can make positive changes in our culture to decrease beauty sickness. In the meantime, we can make changes in our own lives and in the lives of the women we love by reading this book and applying it to ourselves and the people we love.
