Gabrielle Korn

From the former editor-in-chief of Nylon comes a provocative and intimate collection of personal and cultural essays featuring eye-opening explorations of hot button topics for modern women, including internet feminism, impossible beauty standards in social media, shifting ideals about sexuality, and much more. Gabrielle Korn starts her professional life with all the right credentials. Prestigious college degree? Check. A loving, accepting family? Check. Instagram-worthy offices and a tight-knit group of friends? Check, check. Gabrielle’s life seems to reach the crescendo of perfect when she gets named the youngest editor-in-chief in the history of one of fashion’s most influential publication. Suddenly she’s invited to the world’s most epic parties, comped beautiful clothes and shoes from trendy designers, and asked to weigh in on everything from gay rights to lip gloss on one of the most influential digital platforms. But behind the scenes, things are far from perfect. In fact, just a few months before landing her dream job, Gabrielle’s health and wellbeing are on the line, and her promotion to editor-in-chief becomes the ultimate test of strength. In this collection of inspirational and searing essays, Gabrielle reveals exactly what it’s truly like in the fashion world, trying to find love as a young lesbian in New York City, battling with anorexia, and trying not to lose herself in a mirage of women’s empowerment and Instagram perfection. Through deeply personal essays, Gabrielle recounts her struggles to reconcile her long-held insecurities about her body while coming out in the era of The L Word, where swoon-worthy lesbians are portrayed as skinny, fashion-perfect, and power-hungry. She takes us with her everywhere from New York Fashion Week to the doctor’s office, revealing that the forces that try to keep women small are more pervasive than anyone wants to admit, especially in a world that’s been newly branded as woke. From #MeToo to commercialized body positivity, Korn’s biting, darkly funny analysis turns feminist commentary on its head. Both an in-your-face take on impossible beauty standards and entrenched media ideals and an inspiring call for personal authenticity, this powerful collection is ideal for fans of Roxane Gay and Rebecca Solnit.

How I Survived Hypocrisy, Beauty, Clicks, and Likes

Everybody (Else) Is Perfect

Lindsey Barnett

As a new generation of women, how do we recognize ourselves and each other without the pressure to be perfect—however that's currently being defined?

I constantly find myself in conversations with women who-like me alternate between two extremes: thinking other women are perfect just as they are, and quietly loathing themselves.

It's one thing to objectively understand that your value is independent of how thin you are, but when people around you still struggle to disentangle thinness from attractiveness, it's hard to keep in mind.

Happy weight happens when you're in love and you stop worrying so much about how good you look because youre so distracted by how good you feel. 

 In reality there's no one who has the right to dictate how someone's value should be determined, whether they're say- ing it explicitly or implying it with how they choose to depict people.

Everybody (Else) Is Perfect quotes

Join the club