It's Not Really About the Hair: An Outspoken Stylist's Smart Guide to Life by Tabatha Coffey

 

Summary:

 

Fans of the hit Bravo show "Tabatha's Salon Takeover" tune in for the straight-shooting, unvarnished commentary of its ballsy, stylish, and savvy star. Though millions admire Tabatha Coffey's unflinching honesty and never-say-die attitude, some do not and have even taken to name-calling. Refusing to let others define her, she has reclaimed the word "bitch," transforming it to fit the person she is: Brave, Intelligent, Tenacious, Creative, and Honest.

In "It's Not Really About the Hair," this deeply private woman shares the experiences of her own life to encourage you to get in touch with your own inner bitch. Tabatha reveals how she used her strength and openness to help define her signature look, personal relationships, life choices, and tenacious work ethic--one that in her own words likens her to "a pit bull with a bone." Here are the people and the circumstances that have led her to a place of honesty, self-assurance, satisfaction, and success--from her tough-minded "mum" to her famous mentors, her peers, and clients.

Part memoir, part business manual, and part coaching guide on achieving self-acceptance and love, "It's Not Really About the Hair" teaches you that it's all right to be who you are, stand up for what you believe in, and do what makes you happy without being defined by others.

Tabatha Coffey's raw, funny, shocking, and always inspirational story will encourage you to celebrate the long-lasting and most important beauty of all--the true beauty that is you.

Summary & Photo taken from Goodreads.com

Length: 212 pages

Source: Toronto Public Library

Publication Date: January 1st 2011 by It Books

 

Back in October one of the Goodreads groups I'm in You'll love this one...!! A book club & more had a week long non-fiction read-a-thon and this was one of my reads for the challenge. I've long been a fan of Tabatha Coffey and I actually watch her show every week. I love her attitude and her work ethic. Plus when she goes off on the stupidity of some people well she's a girl after my own heart.

 

When I found out that Tabatha had a book I was kind of surprised and a little nervous. I really wanted to read it but I was a little nervous as to how it would turn out because Celebrity biographies, autobiographies and memoirs can be very hit or miss. So, when I finally did start this book I went into it with low expectations and ended up completely surprised.

 

In It's Not Really About the Hair: An Outspoken Stylist's Smart Guide to Life Tabatha gives us a glimpse into her early life in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia with her mother and father. Her parents owned a strip club when she was very young and she writes how she often spent much of her time there helping out the transsexual strippers that they employed.

 

Tabatha's upbringing and life experiences have clearly shaped her into the strong, intelligent, independent woman that she is but even this self reliant woman admits that she could not have turned out the way she is without the love and acceptance of her mother which I can totally relate to because my mother (and father) are the most important people in my life.

 

Though Tabatha did have some hard knocks in life she was ultimately able to rise above everything and pull her life together to the extent that she was able to open her own salon and employ other stylists to work for her.

 

The book was a quick read, and to my surprise it wasn't dry as some autobiographies are. Instead while I read the book I felt as though Tabatha were reading it to me. I was impressed with it and the personal details that she shared since she is clearly a rather private person I thought it was a real treat to learn about her and her struggle to get where she is now. I think she's an awesome stylist and a passionate person about everything she does which I truly admired about her.

 

Overall I really enjoyed the book. It was a quick and easy read but still enjoyable. I would recommend this book to everyone who loves her shows Tabatha's Salon Takeover and Tabatha Takes Over. It's a quick read that will keep you entertained and may even surprise you too.

 

Really Liked it!
★ ★ ★ ★

 

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Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl by Stacey O'Brien

Summary:

On Valentine's Day 1985, biologist Stacey O'Brien first met a four-day-old baby barn owl -- a fateful encounter that would turn into an astonishing 19-year saga. With nerve damage in one wing, the owlet's ability to fly was forever compromised, and he had no hope of surviving on his own in the wild. O'Brien, a young assistant in the owl laboratory at Caltech, was immediately smitten, promising to care for the helpless owlet and give him a permanent home. Wesley the Owl is the funny, poignant story of their dramatic two decades together.

With both a tender heart and a scientist's eye, O'Brien studied Wesley's strange habits intensively and first-hand -- and provided a mice-only diet that required her to buy the rodents in bulk (28,000 over the owl's lifetime). As Wesley grew, she snapped photos of him at every stage like any proud parent, recording his life from a helpless ball of fuzz to a playful, clumsy adolescent to a gorgeous, gold-and-white, macho adult owl with a heart-shaped face and an outsize personality that belied his 18-inch stature. Stacey and Wesley's bond deepened as she discovered Wesley's individual personality, subtle emotions, and playful nature that could also turn fiercely loyal and protective -- though she could have done without Wesley's driving away her would-be human suitors!
O'Brien also brings us inside the prestigious research community, a kind of scientific Hogwarts where resident owls sometimes flew freely from office to office and eccentric, brilliant scientists were extraordinarily committed to studying and helping animals; all of them were changed by the animal they loved. As O'Brien gets close to Wesley, she makes important discoveries about owl behavior, intelligence, and communication, coining the term "The Way of the Owl" to describe his inclinations: he did not tolerate lies, held her to her promises, and provided unconditional love, though he was not beyond an occasional sulk. When O'Brien develops her own life-threatening illness, the biologist who saved the life of a helpless baby bird is herself rescued from death by the insistent love and courage of this wild animal.
Enhanced by wonderful photos, Wesley the Owl is a thoroughly engaging, heartwarming, often funny story of a complex, emotional, non-human being capable of reason, play, and, most important, love and loyalty. It is sure to be cherished by animal lovers everywhere.
Summary taken from Goodreads.com


So one day earlier this week I was lurking a friends bookshelf on Goodreads and I spotted this book. I was drawn immediately to the cover because honestly how can you NOT find the picture of young Wesley adorable. I must say he really was a handsome fellow and Stacey O'Brien was a lucky girl indeed.

Now I'm not normally one to read animal stories mostly because they usually end in the animal dying. But I am NOT I repeat NOT against them. I have enjoyed the couple that I have read and I hope to be reading more books like this one in the near future.

Right off the bat I knew that I would come to love this book, the author Stacey O'Brien wrote it beautifully and with heart. She had the rare ability to make a book like this come alive while I was reading it and it was almost as if I were in the room with her and Wesley.

Reading about Wesley's antics was hilarious and I found myself laughing rather loudly when he decided that Stacey was no longer his mother but his mate and proceeded to mate with her arm and attempted to feed her dead mice while she was sleeping as well as making nests for her. Honestly what more could a gal want? He even did a stand up job protecting her from other people who came into their "territory" (Her room).

What I loved most about this book is that you could feel the love Stacey and Wesley shared emanating off of every page. The book was so good that I finished it in a few short hours. I commend Stacey on her efforts and I hope that her, her grandma and both of their owls get a chance to hang out one day.  As for the ending I did have a tear but had to curb my impulse to cry since I was finishing the book on the bus to school this morning.

I recommend this to everyone. It's one of the best books I've read this year and I guarantee you will never look at owls the same ever again and maybe it can encourage people to have their say and help the efforts to end the way owls are treated now.

 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard

Summary:
In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.
For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse.

For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.

On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim. I survived.

A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it.

I have heard some good things and some bad things about this book and the bad things almost made me not read this, however I'm glad that I did. Jaycee's story of abuse and being held captive broke my heart. The way she wrote the book is very much like a journal which is how I bekieve it should be written so if you are looking for something that will win an award for being written in the classic story telling style then you'll probably be among those that do not like it.
I have been following Jaycee's story since she was found and reunited with her family. Now I'm not one to pray but I have been hoping for the best for her, her daughters and her family and friends.  Now that she's been found I hope she can find happiness. She deserves it after all she's been through.
Despite the horrific sexual, physical, emotional and verbal abuse she suffered during her eighteen years of captivity with Phillip and Nancy Garrido who are monsters in my opinion and should suffer she emerged a strong, powerful woman who has a heart full of love to give.
She was raped at 11, became a mother at 14 and again at 17 but she loves her daughters with every fiber of her being and when the Garrido's forced her to become her daughters "sister" she did so knowing it might save them from harm.
I found her story to be disturbing, but at the same time it held a promise of hope. I think that everyone should read it but please beware there are some situations that will disturb you. I even walked away learning a little something about life. Despite what happened to her Jaycee refuses to let hate rule her, instead she looks to a new and brighter day. I wish her all the best in her future and those of her family and friends.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali and Delphine Minoui

Summary:
“I’m a simple village girl who has always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today I have decided to say no.”

Forced by her father to marry a man three times her age, young Nujood Ali was sent away from her parents and beloved sisters and made to live with her husband and his family in an isolated village in rural Yemen. There she suffered daily from physical and emotional abuse by her mother-in-law and nightly at the rough hands of her spouse. Flouting his oath to wait to have sexual relations with Nujood until she was no longer a child, he took her virginity on their wedding night. She was only ten years old.

Unable to endure the pain and distress any longer, Nujood fled—not for home, but to the courthouse of the capital, paying for a taxi ride with a few precious coins of bread money. When a renowned Yemeni lawyer heard about the young victim, she took on Nujood’s case and fought the archaic system in a country where almost half the girls are married while still under the legal age. Since their unprecedented victory in April 2008, Nujood’s courageous defiance of both Yemeni customs and her own family has attracted a storm of international attention. Her story even incited change in Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries, where underage marriage laws are being increasingly enforced and other child brides have been granted divorces.

Recently honored alongside Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice as one of Glamour magazine’s women of the year, Nujood now tells her full story for the first time. As she guides us from the magical, fragrant streets of the Old City of Sana’a to the cement-block slums and rural villages of this ancient land, her unflinching look at an injustice suffered by all too many girls around the world is at once shocking, inspiring, and utterly unforgettable.

This book had been sitting on my To-be-read since January of this year and so last night seemed like the perfect time to read it. I found this book to be well written and touching.  She is so brave I cannot imagine being that age and going through all the things she went through.

I wish I could hug her and hold her close, she's the same age as my nephew and I can't believe that these things happened to such a little girl. Before reading this book I knew that these atrocities happen but I believe that reading the personal accounts of the victims is important. In my opinion it makes the problems in other countries seem more real to us.

I was struck by how intelligent this 10 year old illiterate little girl is. She is most definitely wise beyond her years, in part due to her abuse but also due to her environment. To see the world through her eyes is shocking yet surprising as she still manages to see the good in people, in her world even though the world has been cruel to her. I love how she retained her love for her family even though they were responsible for what happened to her.

All in all I found her to be a breath of fresh air. I think everyone should read this account and I wish her and all the girls like her luck. I think everyone should read this book. I highly recommend it!
★ ★ ★ 1/2