Absolutely incredible. A modern classic in relation to feminism and beauty standards. A deep examination into how women experience and are perceived in the technological world. Atlanta examines this from numerous viewpoints - discussing deep fakes, Instagram face, digital harassment, and more. I was infuriated while reading this, but it's also something I want every woman to read. Absolute must read. I finished this book months ago and I still think about it regularly.

On the list of books I've read recently about the dangers of toxic beauty culture and the unrealistic expectations made of women and girls in our modern era, this is quite possibly the best.

Ellen Atlanta does an excellent job in "Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women" of not only raising critical issues for women to help them understand the adverse affect popular culture could have on them, but also of telling her own story about her own place within the machine that makes us question ourselves, our appearance and our existence.

I've seen others say this in their reviews and it's worth echoing: There were moments in reading "Pixel Flesh" where I was uncomfortable. Not just because I was weeping inside for the women in Atlanta's stories, but because I recognized so much of their stories in my own.

Atlanta also succeeds in creating something that is truly intersectional, not just examining what it means to be a woman, but what it means to be a woman of color, a trans woman, a young woman or girl.

And she certainly doesn't hold back in her telling of her own experiences. Her language is stark, straightforward and hair-raising at times - but also utterly necessary.

I also feel it's important to note that in the audiobook, which was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, Atlanta narrates with ease and honesty. Her voice adds an additional layer of emotion that is tangible.

This is a must-read for any woman with a social media account. You won't look at it the same way again.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a great job. As a nonfiction book, this was incredibly interesting and I wanted to listen to more. This book is a close insider look at the modern beauty culture in the western world. Ellen Atlanta writes this book for all women. The book resonated with me and I think would for most women. Atlanta goes over all of it. Ranging from "baby botox" to eating disorders and body dysmorphia to the turbulent world of social media and the expectations/pressure that cyberspace can put on women and girls. While much of the book resonated with my experiences, I also learned so much and gained new perspective and insight. There is something both special and heartbreaking about Atlanta having interviewed so many women for this book and the way so many of them were able to articulate things they had experienced.
I'm excited something like this has been published and is available/accessible to people who need it.
I plan to purchase this for our library and would encourage students to read this book. I think it opens a lot of important conversations.
Rate 4.5

Thank you to NetGalley audioarc to preview.

I have not read anything else exactly like this. I listened to this audiobook through a lash fill and a nail appointment, and I like to think that Ellen herself is at an esthetician somewhere bumping a good audiobook right now as well. We are truly the same.

This book didn't make me hate myself for all of my little appointments. But I will henceforth be charging all expenses to the Patriarchy.

Ellen Atlanta explores the intersection of the beauty industry and technology in this beautiful book, but also dissects girlhood and tells a story that we all know even if we have not yet seen it in print. She encourages us to share this book in the closing chapter to expand this conversation, and so this is my attempt to do so.

So many little thoughts stuck with me - I loved learning that we may experience the disorientation that we do as humans when we recognize AI when we experience people with all of the same Instagram faces, and that when someone is used to seeing their face edited their real reflection can cause them to experience dysmorphia because the reflection doesn't match their expectations. I have a lot of thoughts and would love to discuss this book.

And also, the cover 😍😍

<I>Thanks to NetGalley for the arc! I am going to buy a hard copy so the free ebooks work out sometimes 😂

Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women is a nonfiction book by Ellen Atlanta. In this book, Atlanta explains how filters, social media, and culture in general can affect women's psyches. This is particularly true when looking at Instagram influencers, which is Atlanta's main focus throughout.

Gosh I tried. I want to begin by saying I am the target audience for this book. I'm a 90's baby, meaning I had a young childhood without social media, but became a teenager when Myspace and Tumblr were ravaging our minds. With all of this in mind, I enjoyed the beginning of the book, but then found Atlanta to be repeating the same points over and over again. This book is entirely a rehash of the title: Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women. Atlanta continues to say that toxic beauty culture does in fact harm women, but then go too in-depth about the exact ways that women harm themselves. As someone who has had disordered eating in the past, this made my brain begin to latch on to these ways as potential avenues for myself. An example of this is that I never thought of laxatives as a way to lose weight until this book. I went down the rabbit hole until I had the moment of "what am I doing?"

Overall, Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women just wasn't for me. Maybe I'm not healed enough in my disordered eating journey to actually digest this book, but I had to be done for my own health. Thank you to Ellen Atlanta, MacMillan Audio, and NetGalley for an audiobook copy in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars-
Some of the book was thought provoking, but it felt like the author was awkwardly focusing on the Kardashians. I mean, they are part of the problem in this culture right now, but it felt a bit like a teenager talking crap about another teenager at school.

Other than that, yes, society has created a monster when it comes to beauty standards, but that’s just as much on us as it is the celebrities, media, etc. This is what the author alludes to in part of the book and I agree.
I may not be the right audience for this book because I’m 40, live in South Georgia, and usually don’t wear a stitch of makeup. I’ve always been naturally on the thin side and look pretty conventionally normal. I hardly even think about the way I look. This book actually made me really thankful for that. However, girls and young women would probably get a lot from reading what the author had to write.

The narrator’s voice fit well with the book.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and MacMillan Audio for the chance to preview this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a really poignant read; it feels like so many of the feminist texts that came out of the early 2000s, but with so much more understanding (or understanding at all) of the age of social media and its impact on women.

You can tell that the author put so much heart and soul into this book. It was such a beautiful and heartbreaking read. The book delves into the interaction between society and women online. I’m sad to say that there were many times I connected to this book, especially as someone who grew up when the Internet was at its peak of unkindness. I will definitely be recommending this book to my friends, as it provides such insight into the impact of social media on our psyche.

In our digital age, beauty has simultaneously become more attainable and harder out of reach than ever. Pixel Flesh deeply examines toxic beauty culture, from an obsession with filters and AI tech to injectables and plastic surgery, and the effect each has on our psyche as women. As a mother and someone who engages with social media, I found the deep examination of this toxic capitalist era to be eye-opening, albeit sad.

This book is incredibly needed in our toxic beauty culture. I want to make it a mandatory read. Girls please read this amazing book! Also this is narrated by the author. She was amazing!

Toxic perfectionism is a huge problem in my community (Utah) but it isn't just looks. It is also just doing everything.
Influencers make the already existing issue so much worse.
The thing is I love my friends and find them incredibly beautiful without all the surgery, makeup, hair dye, or anything else. The idea that we need to be beautiful and perfect to be worthy needs to be destroyed.
It also makes things harder for trans girls.
And it makes men and boys think they can use our insecurities against us. Or they simply think it is okay to critique us, as if we are not people.

I am older than our author so my issues do not come from from the Kardashians or Jenners or any of those girls. I came into my own before influencers took over the internet. This is likely what makes this easier for me to examine from a distance. I stopped wearing makeup in 2020 and stopped dying my hair in 2015.
Someone said "What if we loved ourselves? It would destroy capitalism" and I was like "I want to destroy capitalism."
So my glow up was freeing myself from all of that. Love me as I am or stay away from me.

This is one of the easiest 5 star ratings ever for me, one of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to, and I really believe it should be required reading for basically everyone alive today. The audiobook in particular is very powerful because the author narrates it herself and she has a particularly strong voice! I am pleased to share that I have already convinced at least two straight men to listen to it when it drops!

The reason I so strongly love this is because while the author is a bit younger than I am, one of the youngest millennials right on the cusp with Gen Z, and so some of her experiences are not quite what I had to contend with (and make no mistake, with the advancing technology, her experiences are more horrific than my own, at a younger age), in broad strokes the book does really nail how it feels to be a woman (anyone who identifies as a woman) alive today. From just absolutely insane standards of appearance that we are held to, driving celebs and normies alike to use photo editing apps just to post a photo of a girls night out, to the fear of aging that is affecting us younger and younger, plastic surgery, filler, Botox, eating disorders, racism and constant harassment online, and the pretty intense body dysmorphia that all of us just have and never explicitly acknowledge, this book is so well worth a read or listen. It made me cry more than once and it made me feel so, so seen.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, but most especially Ellen Atlanta for allowing me to access the ARC but really - thank you for putting this book into the world. We so need it, and I will be shouting about it into the void for all to hear.

For everyone who has ever sucked it in, facetuned it out, thrown it up, or played it down- this one's for you. Ellen Atlanta talks us through it all, the unbearable weight of capital "B" Beauty, how it affects us individually, as a society, and what we can do to make it better for the girls that come after us. This book made me feel so much better about myself, not because I didn't know how toxic beauty culture was affecting me but because I couldn't see how the disperate insecurities I have were all actually interconnected with my femininity and queerness. Atlanta perfectly balances research, testimony, and application in this book. I wish every woman I know would read this book.

Pixel Flesh is a powerful look into the harmful impacts of today’s beauty culture and standards. When I tell you I got a little emotional within minutes of starting, I am not kidding. There were parts that were shocking, but honestly, it wasn’t surprised to read about the damage being done. I highly recommend this to anyone. Period. It is powerful and raw and important.

This is a timely and entertaining look at how recent social media trends affect and harm real people.

What an important and timely listen. This is the book that I will be buying for all my friends who also feel the pressures of the beauty industry. As I age, I feel the need to constantly stay on top of my skin routine and to keep dyeing my hair. It’s so frustrating and I do think that the beauty industry and the patriarchy keep us distracted while we lose our rights slowly but surely. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc audiobook in exchange for an honest review, all opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you to @ellenatlanta and @netgalley for the ARC of Pixel Flesh. I can’t imagine the difficulty, self reflection, self preservation, hurt and awakening that must have occurred throughout the research and writing process. This is a necessary and must read for women, sisters, mothers, aunties, teachers, role models. This speaks the blunt, bold, and absolutely profound underlying truth throughout the toxic beauty culture and standards placed on developing women today. Wow. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️
Publication Day: Aug 6th

#nonfiction #toxicbeauty #pixelflesh #bookish #bookstagram #bethewomanyouneededasagirl

Pixel Flesh pleasantly surprised me with its depth and overall intersectional lens. This was the most comprehensive look at toxic beauty culture in all of its major iterations -- ageism, colorism, motherhood, EDs, and more. At times it was a hard listen, I think there is subject matter that is triggering to most women, since we have all been raised under capitalism -- specifically a capitalism that preys on us at every turn for the entirety of our lives, because it profits from our insecurities. I think this book should be mandatory reading for all girls in middle school. If I had read this earlier it would have put a lot in perspective for me, but here I am at 33 deciding to cancel my Botox appointment next month upon finishing this book. I'm glad it found its way to me, and I hope it finds its way to more women.

The only thing better than reading Pixel Flesh? Having it read to you by the author, Ellen Atlanta.

WOW, this needs to be required reading for 2024, especially for anyone 35 and under who identifies as female. Ellen Atlanta hit it out of the park with this; from the beautiful interviews, to the heartbreaking truths, to the evidence backed claims. Pixel Flesh is unique in that it brings transparency to our inner monologues as they are now, rather than just providing affirmations in hopes it'll lessen our emotional burden going forward. There's a raw feeling that envelops you while simultaneously learning.

I'm a sucker for books that can completely alter the way I think about aspects of life - Ellen does that more than a few times. I'll admit there are many books similar to this; I've read a lot of them... This is the new front runner. Mark my words, this will become one of the best Women's Nonfiction books from 2024.


(Thank you to NetGalley & publisher St. Martin's Press for ALC!)