It’s Nicole! This book is just as witty and wonderful as the presence you see on Netflix! I was leery to read this book as I have body image issues but I threw my own caution to the wind and gave it a go. I received this as an advanced review copy from NetGalley and I am so thankful I did. I don’t typically buy self-help/ biography style books, so I never would have purchased this. What a mistake, this book was one of my favorite reads this year. I love how open and honest Nicole Byer is. I resonated with her words.

I LOVE Nicole and I LOVED this book #somuch . I 100% related to the views she has about being #veryfat and #verybrave and I SO appreciated the humor and transparency she brought to this whole movement. Through reading this amazing work of Nicole's, I feel seen and heard and validated. I also have never laughed harder or more often throughout the reading of a single other book. She is bloody brilliant!

I loved this book, and the messages that it contained within it. I think many people would benefit from reading Nicole's ideas and content.

Nicole Byer brings her usual humour, hilarity, and unashamed pride in who she is to this "memoir" of sorts. It's empowering, and funny, and has a lot of heart at the core of it all.

Caveat: I would probably not be considered a member of the Fat community. I am about 20 pounds over the healthiest-for-my-body weight, and twice I've been as high as 50 pounds over that ideal. What is ideal for me is not the same as what's on the chart for my height-- although I did get down to that idealized goal when I was very ill, I was also completely unable to do things like walk up a flight of stairs. I'm pretty comfy with my body and worry less about how it looks, as long as it's doing all it's tasks healthfully and well.

This photo-heavy body-positivity book is a great boost for any adult reader (who isn't sensitive to a lot of cursing and would enjoy a chatty, pal-y style of address). The bikinis in the photos are so adorable! The author says never to offer "you have such a pretty face!" as a "compliment" to a Fat person, but honestly, there were some photos where I was distracted from the bikini by how honestly gorgeous her face is.

The what-might-happen's are cumulatively very powerful. They're, like, squaring the power of sarcasm. While reading these, I was overlaying them a bit on my own body image challenge, body hair. If I wear a swimsuit more than 12 hours after shaving my whole body, what will happen? Will the earth crumble if there was a part of the back of my leg that I couldn't see and missed?

The only thing that may be difficult for some readers is that the book came off a little able-centric. The author give self-affirmations a few times in the book, and they are beautiful but include the statement "If I want to change [my body], I can." That would have been very difficult to read while I was on bed rest or unable to complete basic tasks. And even though I'm doing better now, I'm not able to do the same things, challenge myself the same way, think about my health the same way as a person who doesn't have a long-term illness. It isn't until the last affirmation of the book that the statement includes the idea that some people are limited in the control they have over their own bodies.

Thank you, Nicole Byer, for your honesty, bravery, humor, and being unapologetically YOU! This book serves up truth and an empowering dose of self-love in a humorous, yet honest manner. It is an inspiration that is well-written and contains amazing advice! Buy this book! Read it! Put it on your bedside table or coffee table! Buy it for your friends! Read it and learn to love yourself! You will enjoy it! Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to review this book!

Nicole Byer is a NATIONAL TREASURE. This book is a delight and I want more. The photography is also super fun in this one. #VERYBRAVE

I have lost the copy of this book so I am really sorry I won't be able to give feedback on this book. I wanted to read this book but the copy got deleted from my phone. Really sorry.

I was cackling halfway through reading the title of this book, and it just escalated from there.

Every fat person has experienced the panic that comes from an occasion calling for a bathing suit. This book is for anyone who’s struggled with body image, but especially for fat and / or Black women. If you’ve ever exposed or drawn attention to a bit of your own soft flesh, you know exactly what Nicole Byer (Nailed It, Why Won’t You Date Me?) means when she hashtags VERYBRAVE.

I’m a fat woman who spends a greater-than-average amount of time naked, either as a life drawing model or on a stage performing, and most people’s reaction when they find out is ‘You’re so brave, I could never do that!’ A fellow fat friend of mine has a penchant for sequins, and every time she wears something sparkly in public, a stranger inevitably stops her to tell her how ‘brave’ she is for daring to wear something so noticeable.

It’s hard not to read that as a thinly-veiled neg — ‘You’re supposed to be ashamed of your body, yet here you are, existing in it. How very #brave of you.’ Intellectually, I know it’s more complicated than that — we live in a white supremacist, patriarchal society that profits from and actively fuels our insecurity — but sometimes it’s hard to forgive a world that treats your body as a punchline or a cautionary tale.

Nicole tears into this notion with her trademark blunt hilarity in a way that focuses on the systemic issues. It is brave to be comfortable in your body, especially as a Black woman, even though it shouldn’t be, and she channels her rage towards the industries and systems that teach us we’ll never be good enough, rather than the people struggling alongside us. She knows that making peace with yourself is a journey, not a destination, and her compassion is an inspiration to us all.

Nicole shares her own journey, from swimming in her clothes as a kid (#notbrave) to posing in bikinis all over town in a frenetic week-long photo shoot (#sobrave). She offers hilarious tips and tricks for dealing with the haters, whether that’s the voice in your head or the one shouting at you on the street. Sometimes, laughter really is the best medicine.

Naturally, the book delves into some heavy stuff around diet culture and fat shaming, but in a manner that is both sensitive and humorous. While the book is predominantly a memoir of her personal experience as a Black woman, she makes an effort to be inclusive and acknowledge that her experience isn’t universal. It’s a tough balance to strike, especially in comedy, but she nailed it (pun intended) and the overall effect is a brilliant example of how punching up doesn’t mean you can’t still write a book that should really come with a ‘pee before reading’ warning.

The best part isn’t even the story or the jokes (although they’re great!) — it’s the photos of Nicole showing off her incredible collection of more than one hundred bikinis. They are glorious in and of themselves, but combined with Byer’s captions exploring and making light of her greatest fears about her body, they are a masterpiece.
In her memoir Shrill, Lindy West’s (excellent!) advice for getting more comfortable with diverse bodies boiled down to ‘look at pictures of fat people until they’re just pictures of people.’ Most people start by following body positivity activists and plus-sized models on Instagram. But if you’re in a hurry, then Nicole Byer has gifted us a crash course in loving the body you’re in, just as it is. The way she revels in her body and the things it can do, instead of faulting it for what it can’t, is utterly joyous and inspiring.

This book belongs on your coffee table, as a collage surrounding your mirror, or as fabric for a fabulous bikini of your own (free merch idea for you, Nicole!) so you can revisit its lessons every day. It’s rare to look at a fashion spread and feel better about yourself, but #VERYFAT #VERYBRAVE left me feeling very #blessed.

So next time I want to cry about some throwaway tweet about how terribly funny it is that we’re all going to get fat in isolation, as though the worst thing that could happen during a pandemic is to end up looking like me, I’m going to put on a bikini and dance because I, too, am #VERYBRAVE.

To quote Nicole, ‘The world can be cruel, so why not at least be nice to yourself?’ Cheers to that.

I absolutely loved this book! If you listen to any of the numerous podcasts Nicole has, you will love this book too. The photos are amazing and I laughed at every caption.

I'd like to thank the publisher and netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in an exchange for an honest review.
I liked this!

Fun and light-hearted book by a very funny woman! Nicole's confidence and self-esteem is truly something we should all strive for!

Nicole Byer is one of my favourite comedians and I can't get enough of her comedy! I was introduced to her through Nailed It! and ever since I've enjoyed following her career. When I saw this book pop up on NetGalley and Goodreads, it was a giant, enthusiastic YES YES YES YES YES YES and I requested it without hesitation.

This book is sassy and honest, exactly how I like these kind of books! I was chuckling in the intro, and that was only two pages in, let alone when we got to the tips and the rest of the book! For example, make sure you change in a change room is a funny comment, BUT I HAVE SEEN PEOPLE DO THAT IN PUBLIC SO OMG RELATABLE AND HIGHLY AMUSING. All caps, because I was snorting and chuckling along with this comment, remembering that odd time in a Burlington Coat Factory.

Now, I do have to admit I'm biased. My entire life I was made fun of for my weight (even when I was at my healthiest as a highly competitive athlete or as just a kindergartener because you know... kids are mean), and I still am. I can relate to this book very well, and thus found it enjoyable to read about it in a comedic sense.

Extra positives:
1. Dinosaur Bikini = Awesome
2. Imagining someone just eating a raw potato while wearing a bikini
3. "Your worth isn't dictated by whether someone's attracted to you." SAY IT LOUDER FOR THOSE PEOPLE IN THE BACK, NICOLE!
4. Lobster Bikini Top = Wild
5. Burger and Fries One Piece = I want to find this. It's incredible.
6. The body positivity in this is AWESOME. As another Millennial who worked on her body confidence for the last year, I can truly appreciate this honest and funny take. Nicole is my spirit animal!

In summary, BUY THIS BOOK. I highly recommend it and I absolutely love it! It's fantabulous!

Five out of five stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrew McMeels Publishing for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Nicole Byer is incredible. More people need to be listening her and knowing her. I will always be recommending her and this book.

I LOVE Nicole Byer, so I was really excited that she wrote a book. However, the ratio of writing to photos is really disproportionate, and it wasn't what I was looking for out of a book by a comedian (funny stories/essays). While there were some really good pieces of writing, it was so minimal (I would've LOVED more elaboration on a lot of the things she talked about), and I hope she does write another book that is more "traditional' and is more writing based than picture based.
If you are looking for what the book is (a majority of photos and call to action to be #brave), you will enjoy it. If you're looking more for something more heavy on prose, this isn't the book for you.
I do feel bad for not liking this more because I really do love Nicole Byer; I just like my books to be more book-y.

This was a quick read, obviously because many pages are images with a small caption, and I found the inclusion of how people reacted to her in public at the end to be very interesting, though not that shocking. I don’t know if this will have pushed me to be #brave, but I did enjoy seeing someone else do it!

Nicole Byer is hilarious and this book doesn't disappoint. The amazing pictures with her brilliant commentary is enough to make anyone want to rock a bikini. This is a quick read and a lot of fun and I recommend it to anyone looking for a good laugh or a little body confidence.

I loved this. I wish it was a little longer and the tongue in cheek captions to the photos at the end got a little much. But, the photos were gorgeous, the writing was hilarious, definitely worth reading.

It was a Sunday night, I'd been in lockdown for over two months, I'd just read a string of intense thrillers and I was looking for a book that would just make me happy. #VERYFAT #VERYBRAVE by Nicole Byer was perfect. Between the beautiful color photos of Byer's impressive bikini collection and her captions and anecdotes that made me laugh out loud, this book put me in a better mood. It's positive without being precious and addresses the cruelty that makes the #veryfat have to be #verybrave simply to go about their daily activities without being preachy. No matter where you are on the #fat and #brave continuums, this book has something you'll enjoy. If you're looking for a pick-me-up, pick it up.

Byer gives a humorous twist on what it is like to be fat. Her writing will have you roaring with laughter, and she will fill you with the confidence you didn't know you needed. We have all heard, seen or read when our "fat friend" post a selfie on social media that they are "so brave". What is brave about being fat? Nicole will tell you, nothing! Live your life, love your body and tell the haters to EFF off. Loved every page of this book, explanations, the photos and captions.

This book is a one time read for me, as much as I enjoyed the humorous words behind it, I wouldn't read it again. Similar to going to a repeat comedy night, it's never as funny the 2nd time around.