Review: The Shape of You

The Shape of You by Felice Stevens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m not going to lie – a large part of why I requested this book was because of the title. I instantly started singing Ed Sheeran, and my mind filled with expectations. I know I shouldn’t have equated the two, but such is where my mind headed. In all honesty, I do not consider Shape of You to be Ed Sheeran’s most emotional song – now, due to the emotional depth of this book, I have an all new favourite Shape of You in my mind.

Honestly, this book was wonderful. It is so much more than a simple love story – it’s a story with real depth, a story that hits you deep, and a story that will leave you thinking long after the story is finished.

Body shaming is a horrible aspect of society, and yet it exists in an extreme it shouldn’t. It happens to a lot more people than society is willing to accept. Too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too pale, too dark – the list goes on. People seem far too happy to pick out faults, and this can lead to many detrimental thought processes. What this book deals with is two different experiences of body shaming. Someone that is considered too fat and someone that is considered too thin – both have issues, both are uncomfortable, and neither are truly happy. What this book works to show, is that happiness comes from within – not from the way society judges you.

I could rant and rave for hours about how wonderfully this issue was dealt with. We get inside the heads of both characters, being given a real insight to both sides of the issue. The prejudices against someone considered too fat and the stereotypes applied to someone considered too thin. We get to see the societal effects, we get to see the personal impact, and we get to see the undertones of body dysphoria that encompasses the minds of many.

Looking at this book solely from the view of a social scientist, viewing it as a wonderful representation of how society treats looks, is all well and good – but the book is so much more than that. Alongside this deep and meaningful insight, we have a wonderful message about learning to love oneself. It’s a wonderful story of acceptance (of both yourself and others), it’s a story of being true to yourself, a story of refusing to be held back, and so many other positive messages that all the happy vibes were firing from me as I read this one.

To make it all the more wonderful, these deep messages are beautifully intertwined with a marvellous story. The romance element is wonderful (it is super sweet when it needs to be, yet hot and heavy at others), the characters are positively amazing, and the writing is wonderful.

I really did fall so in love with our characters. They were both so real – they were flawed, they were complex, and they could easily exist outside the realm of these pages. I loved them both so much, and I adored watching them develop throughout the story. Their interactions were wonderful, and the way they helped each other left me with all the positive vibes. They really were wonderful characters, characters I loved much more than I can explain in a review.

Overall, this one was wonderful. I really could write thousands upon thousands of words upon the beauty of this book, but it’s much better if you jump in and experience the story yourself. It really is a wonderful read.

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