Wonderful book by a deservedly celebrated writer. Fantastic book about writing, teaching writing and the body, of interest to writers and students and general interest. Highly recommend.

Body Work is a really unique look at memoir writing a personal story told by the talented author.This has been called a master class in memoir writing.Ireally learned a lot from this guide and also really enjoyed.A bookI will be recommending.#netgalley#catapult.

The blurb for this book describes it as “memoir meets master class” and I’d say that is an apt description. But, it’s categorized as self -help (yeah, not that). I have enjoyed Debo’s’ writing in the past and loved the memoir aspects, but as a manual for memoirists, I was less interested.

I noticed this book was classified as "self-help," which at first surprised me, as I was anticipating a craft book. In the end, I do feel like the book is in the hybrid space of self-help and literary craft, which makes for an interesting experience. I've read all of Febos's books, which also made reading this one interesting; I found myself skimming through references to many experiences and insights, as they felt like regurgitations of things I've learned in her past works.

On the one hand, I know Febos is only so old, and can only cover so many topics. On the other hand, I wonder what her work would feel like if she slowed down in producing and publishing, and if she gave her insights and voice significant time to marinate. It's tough because Febos is a smart, talented writer with great sentences and important perspectives, but I walked away from this book feeling that I'd garnered little I hadn't from her other work, and as a reader, that's disappointing.

Still, I think there's plenty of merits here, especially for college students or people who are returning to writing after some time away, or who are new to memoir and feeling self-conscious about digging into their narrative voice.

This book takes an empathetic approach and gives bite size approaches and allows you to have kindness and patience with yourself when dealing with life. This is so necessary for everyone to read in life. Highly recommend. Especially loved the reflection to true life to humanize my feelings and relate. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.