I’m also not going to go into much plot detail in my recommendations, you’re reading this on the internet you have google at your disposal. I’m just going to tell you why I think they’re worth reading or who I think they appeal to (just for the record I was mostly thinking of  women under the age of 25 while writing the list).

White Oleander – Janet Fitch. The story of a Californian girl named Astrid and her journey through a number of foster homes while her mother is in prison. You’ll think a lot about mother/daughter relationships and that is a good thing.

Girls To The Front – Sara Marcus. You should probably know some shit about the riot grrl movement. It has it’s flaws but a lot of good stuff came out of it.

Weetzie Bat. Try to ignore the cultural appropriation and enjoy Francesca Lia Block’s dreamy prose. It’s all pink cars and sweet smelling flowers, sometimes even ‘adults’ need a fairy tale.

Prozac Nation – Elizabeth Wurtzel. Mental illness is real and very wide spread. If you’ve experienced depression you might relate to this, if not then somebody close to you probably has and this might help you to understand them better.

Girl – Blake Nelson. Andrea Marr is a hero, Andrea Marr is a role model! No, not really. She is a teenage girl who starts most of her sentences with ‘and’ and doesn’t know what she’s doing most of the time. But neither did I when I was 17 and if there’s two of us who felt that way, there’s definitely others.

Proud Highway – Hunter S. Thompson. Yes, it’s long and yes, it’s a collection of letters; both of which might put you off but push through it. It’s a great look at someone’s life before they ‘made it’ which is helpful when you’re feeling like the only person on earth who isn’t accomplishing what you want to be accomplishing. I especially love the letters from Hunter to his younger brother.

Everybody Loves Our Town – Mark Yarm. An oral history of grunge music and Seattle in the 90s. How could you not want to read about that?!

Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women – Elizabeth Wurtzel. Amy Fisher, Eve, Nicole Brown Simpson. Elizabeth Wurtzel can tie them all together and tell you why they are so important. She wrote this in an ritalin and cocaine frenzy (documented in her next book More, Now, Again) but I think that’s part of the magic; some people might call it rambling, I call it good writing.

Henry and June – Anais Nin. It’s sexy. You’ll like it. I spent most of the summer I was 15 reading Anais’ journals, Henry and June cuts out most of the best parts for you.

Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis. Written by a famous misogynist dickhead but he’s got talent. He wrote this when he was something like 21 years old and it really captures the nihilism some young people feel. I have really enjoyed a lot of his books and his minimalist writing style, I just have to remember not to follow him on twitter or think too hard about what kind of person he is.

Edie: An American Biography – Jean Stein. Doomed beauties are my specialty and I don’t think anybody fits that category better than Edie.

The White Album – Joan Didion. I don’t really care what Didion you read, but read some freaking Didion. The White Album is a collection of essays she wrote in the 1970s. Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a collection of essays she wrote in the 1960s. Read either, read both, they’re both amazing.

Please Kill Me – Legs McNeal and Gillian McCain. The New York 1970s punk movement. It’s an oral history so it’s kind of like listening to a conversation between a bunch of awesome people like Debbie Harry, Lou Reed and Patti Smith.

Candy – Luke Davies. It’s basically autobiography as fiction, the story of the unnamed narrator, his wife Candy and their drug addiction. It’s sad, it’s well written and it’s set in Melbourne and Sydney. I love books set in my home city.

The Female Eunich – Germaine Greer. Yes, a lot of it is a bit outdated. But it’s iconic and still worth reading.

The Dirt – Motley Crue. If you’re not a Motley Crue fan you can pretty much replace this with another rock band memoir, I think this is the ultimate though. If you want to read about Ozzy Osborne snorting a line of ants and his own piss, this is the book for you.

Dear Diary – Lesley Arfin. You’ll relate to it. Or if you don’t, it will remind you of that Rayanne Graff-esque friend you have.

The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides. If you’re a lady over the age of 14 you’ve probably seen the film. Read the book as well.

The Secret History – Donna Tartt. Greeks classics majors at a some New England college get up to some crazy shit. There’s an outsider trying to fit in and a murder, I don’t want to say any more because I don’t want to ruin it. You will love it.

What Falls Away – Mia Farrow because Mia Farrow is the best and it will remind you to hate Woody Allen.

Blonde – Joyce Carrol Oates. You should read something by Joyce Carol Oates and you should know something about Marilyn Monroe, this kills both birds with one stone. It’s a fictional biography of Marilyn/Norma Jean who fits perfectly into that doomed beauties category.

I’m With The Band – Pamela des Barres. She was one of the famous GTO groupies, Miss Pamela. She dated or hooked up with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page and a zillion other 70s rock babes and she wrote all about it in this book. I will still always wish Sable Starr had written a book before she died but this is the next best thing.

Women – Charles Bukowski. I really wasn’t sure whether or not to include this one. I already put one misogynist on the list and I didn’t really want to put my hand up and support another. BUT. Despite his shittiness Bukowski was a talented dude. Read this, read Ham on Rye, read his poetry. Whatever.

Just Kids – Patti Smith. You probably heard everybody talking about it a few years ago, and for good reason. If you didn’t read it then, read it now.

Valley of the Dolls. It’s trashy and it’s fun, and sometimes reading should be just that. Think about this quote from Lesley Arfin, “So you never read Moby Dick? Cool, me either, who cares? If writing was based on how much or what we read, or “old school education”, I guess I wouldn’t be a “real” writer.” It doesn’t have to be ‘great literature’ to be a good read.

Generation X – Douglas Coupland. So you can relate to Generation X, or so you can realise that not much changes. OR so you can dream about quitting your job and running away to Palm Springs.

We Need To Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver. To make you terrified of ever having children.

Health At Every Size – Linda Bacon, because you should know about this shit.

The Beauty Myth – Naomi Wolf. I read this when I was 15 years old and it changed my perspective on a lot of things. It’s probably a bit dated and I’m sure most of the statistics quoted aren’t as relevant as they once were but it’s still an important book.

Selected Unpublished Blog Posts of a Mexican Panda Express Employee – Megan Boyle. You should read something current and I love Megan Boyle. If you’d rather read her things online you can read several hundred thousand words of her live blogging her own life on her blog.

How Sassy Magazine Changed My Life – Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer. Respect your history! You should know who Jane Pratt is and why she is important.

Monkey Grip – Helen Garner. Especially if you’re Australian. Helen Garner was living in Carlton sharehouses and falling in love with junkies before most of us were even born. At the very least it will give you some perspective when you realise nothing you’re feeling and nothing you’re doing is new.

The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath. Some classics suck, this isn’t one of them.

Stiff – Mary Roach. Why wouldn’t you want to know what kinds of things happen to cadavers?!

The post 34 Books To Read If You Want To appeared first on Fat Aus.

I bought this black tunic top thing from Urban Outfitters about four years ago and it had been hiding in a drawer ever since because I could never figure out what to wear it with. I was thinking about just wearing it as a probably inappropriately short dress as above.

But I ended up finding a black mini-skirt to wear under it to provide just those tiny couple of extra inches to keep my arse from hanging out. So ta-da! New outfit! Made up of clothes that have been in my wardrobe for years. And so winter appropriate. Those are faux suspender tights that I bought on eBay and that rip and ladder the moment you look at them. They do look cute though. For some reason my face looks like a weird alien in the above photo when actually my face looks great right now:

Make up free! I read just about every single one of Cat Marnell’s old xoJane articles over the past couple of weeks and bought a bunch of beauty stuff she recommended (maybe I’ll write a blog post about that) including the Clarisonic. So far I love it and my skin loves it and I look all even skin toned and great even without make up.

So there you go. This has been A Post. The end.

The post June 2013 Outfit Post appeared first on Fat Aus.

1. Train In Vain – The Clash

2. Dancing In The Dark – Bruce Springsteen

3. Scentless Apprentice – Nirvana (1993 Loud and Live MTV version)

4. Gutless – Hole

5. Silent All These Years – Tori Amos

6. Rebel Girl – Bikini Kill

The post Top Six Songs Of All Time appeared first on Fat Aus.

Photographer, Paul McDonough, took some beautiful photos of New York City in the late 60s and early 70s.

Tavi wrote this incredible post about her blog turning five years old and about her thoughts on memories and nostalgia, amongst other things. I wrote a tumblr post about growing up and things I remember from that weird period between being a child and a teenager. Harmony Korine did a Reddit AMA that cracked me up (Spring Breakers doesn’t open in Australia until May 2nd but I can’t wait). I enjoyed this New York Magazine about Astrologer Susan Miller, and I enjoyed this piece from The Coveteur about Susan’s daughter Chrissie Miller‘s (the designer behind now defunct Sophmore) apartment (which she shares with her boyfriend, Leo Fitzpatrick aka Telly from ‘Kids’). Also good on The Coveteur was the house tour of model/actress Jaime King who I have liked since I read an article about her in an issue of Marie Claire in my dentist’s waiting room in 2002, and on the subject of Jaime, I’m excited about this documentary about her late boyfriend, fashion photographer Davide Sorrenti, See Know Evil. From The Brown Eyed Baker; a recipe for the best chocolate fudge sauce I’ve ever had. My new favourite tumblr – When Big Hair Roamed The Earth. Thanks America, But You Can Have The Madden Brothers Back Now, seriously why are they always in Australia!? I wonder similar things about the singer Pink.

Andy Prokh’s photos of his daughter Catherine and their British Shorthaired (same as my Zigmond!) cat, Lilu are adorable.

Kathleen Hanna said some good stuff about Taylor Swift on The Daily Beast (I can’t believe that interviewers are still asking her about her part in naming ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit though, is this not 2013?!).  I am obsessed with Within Color, a new-ish blog written by some awesome Women of Color. It’s mostly fashion and beauty (so many good outfit photos!) with some other topics thrown in from time to time. My Misspent Youth by Meghan Daum; it’s great, read it. You look great, have you lost weight? is not a compliment. ‘Can You Wear Leggings As Pants?’: Yes, Because I Fucking Want To!’ I can’t believe the debate about this is still going on. Genius babe Bethany wrote about how she feels about being fat. I wrote about dealing with creepy dudes on tumblr; Please Don’t Make Your Boner My Problem.

I probably talk about how I want to run away and live in a cabin in the woods a little too often but I can’t help it. Here is a list of 31 dream houses in the woods. The ones in the photo above is The Eames House, Case Study House #8 (part of the amazing Case Study House Program which also brought us The incredible Stahl House), it was built in the mid-late 1940s and I am in love with it.

I’ve recently really gotten into Joan Didion (I read The White Album last month, finished The Year of Magical Thinking two weeks ago and I just started reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem yesterday). After reading her essay ‘Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream’ about Lucille Maxwell Miller, who was convicted by the State of California of murdering her husband by dousing him with gasoline and allowing him to burn to death while he slept in a Volkswagen I did some googling and came across ‘A Mother’s Crime‘ on the LA Times, an essay about the murder written by Lucille’s daughter Debra Miller. While on the subject of Didion I also read ‘The Autumn of Joan Didion‘ by Caitlin Flanagan and really enjoyed it. And on the flip-side, after getting really annoyed by Didion’s disparaging essay about ‘The Women’s Movement’ I read this critical essay ‘Joan Didion: Only Disconnect‘ by Barbara Grizzutti Harrison and found it quite interesting.

Recommendations: I bought these t-shirts for me and Tom from Teenage and they are pretty great. I’m attempting to read 52 books this year and I’m already up to book number 18 (which is Selected Unpublished Blog Posts of a Mexican Panda Express Employee by Megan Boyle in case you were curious) and I am enjoying reading so much! I used to read so much when I was younger but I’d slowed down a lot the past few years, so I recommend setting yourself reading-based goals so that you will read more books because reading is the best. I also recommend Mac Rebel lipstick, Dorothy Perkins jeans (the super skinny ones are still not tight enough from the knee down for me but apart from that they are great jeans), black jeans with blue denim jackets, middle parting your hair (I’m super late on this bandwagon and it’s weird to see my forehead but I like it) and listening to Brian Eno’s Music For Airports while you write, or while you do anything really.

Look at that middle part! Good bye fringe/bangs, it was nice knowing you.

The post Heaps Cool Stuff appeared first on Fat Aus.

Oh hi! It’s only been a zillion years since you guys saw my face. I still have a face though, and I do still wear clothes and for once I made Tom take some photos for me.

I really like this jumper and I feel like this is very mildly a ‘fuck flattering’ outfit. Obviously not as much as something with VBO (visible belly outline) etc but just the basic cut of it, the way the jumper makes my midsection look a lot bulkier than it is, the way it pretty much obscures my waist etc. I like little things like that, they make me feel like I’m quietly saying ‘fuck you’ to fashion norms.

skirt: Brodie’s garage sale, shoes: Buffalo, jumper/sweater: borrowed from Tom (he thinks he bought it from Dandenong Savers in 2005), backpack: Shepparton Savers (I am super into backpacks vs handbags lately).

The post 2013 Outfit Post appeared first on Fat Aus.

The post A Love Letter to the Early-Mid 1990s Part One appeared first on Fat Aus.

A quick overview of the movie – Josh Radnor (aka Ted from How I Met Your Mother, I will probably just call him Ted whenever I talk about him because that is all he will ever be to me) plays this mid 30s dude named Jesse who lives in New York, works in admissions at NYU and is generally pretty sad and lonely. He goes back to his old college in Ohio to see an old professor he’s buddies with and meets Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen) who is 19 and free and interesting in the way that only manic pixie dream girls can be. There’s a mutual attraction, she makes him a mix cd of classic music (pretty much a rip off of the whole Shins thing in Garden State or the mix cd Kirsten Dunst makes in Elizabethtown), they become pen pals blah blah blah. It’s basically about how Ted misses being young, college was the most fun he ever had, and he kind of wants to try to relive that time by hooking up with young Zibby but he also kind of thinks he should accept getting older. Zach Efron makes a couple of appearances as a stoner hippie guy, probably the best/most likeable character in the movie so good work Zefron.

Anyway, the scene that bothered me the most was when Ted and Elizabeth Olsen are about to have sex; she tells him she’s a virgin and he freaks out. It’s a common movie trope, the girl who is ready to give herself to a guy (vom) and he freaks out because he doesn’t feel worthy and tells her she should wait for somebody more special or something. I’ve seen it in about a zillion movies and tv shows. Here’s a good example:

(Shoshanna from Girls)

It got me thinking a lot about the idea of virginity and how it’s portrayed in society/life/films etc. I’ve seen this exact scene in a lot of movies and always felt annoyed by it but I’d recently read this quote which kind of made it click in my head as to why it annoyed me so much.

“What does virginity mean to a queer person, who may never have vaginal intercourse in her/his/hir life? What of a lesbian who chooses to never engage in any sort of penetrative sex act her entire life, does she remain some sort of super, extra virgin? If a straight man receives a blowjob, he will in all likelihood still consider himself a virgin, but a gay man receiving a blowjob may have a more complicated understanding of what it means for his sex life. In many ways, our conception of “virginity” erases or invalidates queer sex.” – Sex Pos Grrrl

The whole situation of an man telling a (usually younger) lady that she should wait for somebody special is completely condescending, as though these older men somehow know the worth of sexual experiences and of a ladies’ body better than she does. As though these silly virginal girls just can’t understand the power and importance of sex unless they have had penetrative penis in vagina sex, regardless of any other sexual experiences they might have had. It makes me think of another really great quote I read on tumblr a while back (give me the proper source if you have it!) – ‘I think the concept of virginity was created by men who thought their penises were so important it changes who a woman is‘ (And yes, I know dudes are considered virgins too but not in the same disgusting purity ‘gift’ bullshit way girls are). This idea that p-in-v sex is the be all and end all of becoming a sexual being or whatever is a load of shit. Sexuality is a fluid thing and I hate this idea that those who have had p-in-v sex are somehow wiser or have a greater understanding of sexuality that those who haven’t.

I don’t understand how young ladies can be expected to feel any agency over their own bodies and their own choices if they are being constantly told (especially by older men) what sex has to mean to them, what virginity is, which sexual experiences are big/important and which aren’t. Now obviously nobody is obligated to have sex with anybody else and there’s a million different reasons not to have sex with somebody, and maybe somebody else not having had p-in-v sex is a dealbreaker for you. Sure, cool, that’s fine – but there’s a way to communicate that without telling the other person what importance they should place on this one sex act, and without pushing all of your moral judgements about sex onto them. It’s a bit of an off-shoot of slut shaming, holding up this idea of female virginity as a measure of purity, and as a gift that should be given to one special man. As though having p-in-v sex for the first time in a spur of the moment situation or with somebody you’re not in love with would somehow be a huge and horrible mistake. I just hate the way girls are constantly being told how they should feel about sex, what their ‘first time’ should be like and even what sex is when really these are things that are highly personal and should be figured out by each individual. Maybe you’ll feel like you lost your virginity when you have your first orgasm, or when you have oral sex, or anal sex, or maybe you’ll feel like kissing somebody was the singular most important sexual experience you’ve ever had, maybe you’ll never feel like any sexual experience you’ve had is any bigger or greater or more ‘life changing’ than any other and all of these scenarios are completely normal and completely ok. I don’t think it’s at all helpful or healthy to hold up this idea of one size fits all sexuality, it’s so heteronormative and dumb.

The post Liberal Arts: A Review Of Sorts. Or Musings On The Social Construct Of Virginity appeared first on Fat Aus.

Dress: City Chic, saddle shoes: Etsy/vintage (there are some cute pairs for sale here if you’d also like to channel some Audrey Horne vibes), leather jacket: Angry Young and Poor (review and info here), ‘Loser’ rosette: Dear Colleen

The post Outfit post: December 4th. appeared first on Fat Aus.

At the height of my short career as a blogger who earned money from her blog (I just can’t refer to myself as a ‘professional blogger’ without seriously cringing) I was earning a few hundred dollars a month. Most of my advertisers were people with small businesses and a couple of other bloggers but I started to attract a bit of attention from bigger businesses who were interested in appealing to the niche readership I supposedly attracted (in all honesty I think that the readers of Fat Aus, even back then when I posted almost exclusively outfit photos, are a pretty even split between plus sized and straight sized people). I began receiving lots of emails from PR companies (often addressed to the always lovely and individualized ’Dear Blogger’) usually wanting to know my rates for a ‘sponsored post’. A sponsored post is when a blogger writes an entire blog post that is just an advertisement for a brand or website and the going rate is usually somewhere between $50 – $300. I had never bought or ordered from any of the brands or websites I was being asked to write about, and most of the websites didn’t even offer postage to Australia so I didn’t feel that sponsored posts were something I could post on Fat Aus without feeling really unethical so I turned them down. I also received a lot of emails from websites asking me to write posts for them about fat fashion for ‘exposure’ (aka for free) which I turned down. I’m not completely opposed to writing for free but I would only do it if it was for a website that I felt a personal connection with, not for exposure for my blog. I felt that the advertising I was offering – an image on my sidebar with a link directing to the advertisers’ website, was different to writing sponsored posts because the reader was free to ignore the ads if they weren’t interested in them. As a blog reader there is nothing worse than getting excited for a new post from one of your favourite blogs only to click-through and realise you are reading an advertisement for something you are not interested in (ok, there are a lot of things that are worse but I still hate it).  In the past I have accepted free clothes in exchange for reviews from a few companies and although I only accepted things from brands I liked, I still don’t think I would do it again. I don’t think that a review of something that was given to a blogger for free is ever going to be completely unbiased – if I accepted something free to review, hated it and wrote an honest blog post about it I would surely end up on some bloggers blacklist somewhere (which is something I always keep in mind when reading those kinds of reviews on other blogs). When I come across a product or website I really like I often do tweet or blog about how good it is because I want others to be able to enjoy it too but I only want to do these things on my own terms. Similarly to this, I do still engage one type of advertising on Fat Aus – the ASOS Affiliates Program. I only use it to link back to items I’ve bought from ASOS and I just think of it as making back a little money from all the money I spend on there (if somebody clicks through from a link on my blog and buys something I get 5% of what they spend), its advertising but I can use it on my own terms.

With the addition of advertising I started really obsessing over how much traffic I was getting and making sure I was keeping up with the stats I had sold ads based on. I read articles about how to be a better blogger, how to get more traffic, how to get readers involved (‘End every blog post with a question to encourage comments!’ Yeah, I see you bloggers who constantly do this and I know what you’re up to). I thought about the best layouts to display ads, I promoted my new posts everywhere, I analysed data to figure out which posts were the most popular and why, I was an obsessive blogging machine. And it worked! When I followed the tips from pro-bloggers I did get more traffic, more followers, more comments, and I felt like my advertisers were getting what they paid for – well, kind of. Honestly even when I was getting 50,000 hits in a month the amount of click-throughs on ads were never that high and that’s another reason I got rid of ads, I actually didn’t think the advertisers were getting a very good deal. That’s probably why so many companies want bloggers to write sponsored posts; readers are definitely much more likely to click on links in a blog post than on advertising images on a sidebar. As time went on I started to blog a bit less than usual, down from a few times a week to once a week and then once a fortnight and I was quickly losing passion for it (this actually correlates directly to my having less money to spend on new clothes all the time which is something I’ll write more about a bit later). What made my waning interest worse was that I had an obligation. I had sold ad spaces based on a certain amount of hits per month and when I wasn’t posting, my stats were dropping so not only was I a bit sad that I didn’t feel like blogging, I also felt guilty and like I was letting people down. I kept forcing myself to blog regularly until the time was up on ad spaces that had been paid for in advance and then I took a little break. I left up the ads on my sidebar but stopped sending monthly invoices to the advertisers and I stopped blogging while my traffic stats kept dropping.

While I wasn’t blogging I was still engaging with bloggers, reading blogs and thinking a lot about fatshion blogging, advertising, consumerism and my own ethics. My blog got the most attention when I was posting multiple times each week with a different outfit made up of new or ‘on-trend’ pieces. If I posted photos of myself wearing new clothes that had just come out from ASOS and promoted the post on tumblr, my photos would get hundreds of notes and the post would get thousands of views. This kind of reaction made me feel like in order to be a successful or popular blogger I needed to be buying new clothes constantly. I would buy clothes, wear them once for a blog post and then feel like there wasn’t much point in wearing them again since I’d already photographed them. At the time I had a well paid job and cheap rent so I was financially able to be buying new things all the time but when I moved into a new place where the rent was nearly triple what I was previously paying, I could no longer afford to shop for new clothes every month and my closet was bursting at the seams anyway. I started thinking about my value as a person with thoughts and opinions versus the image I was portraying as a fatshion blogger whose only apparent talent was putting a cute outfit together and I stopped wanting to do outfit posts. For me, being a fat person who likes wearing cute clothes is a political thing and I didn’t include that side of me on this blog for a long time due to some idea of wanting to keep my personal life somewhat private but eventually I decided that if I was going to be sharing photos of myself I might as well include some context of who I am as a person; I wanted to be a three dimensional person, not just a fat lady with cute clothes.

When I began regularly blogging again I got rid of the ads and stopped offering advertising, I stopped focusing on solely outfit photos and started writing about things I was interested in and I started really enjoying blogging again. I’m glad that I can talk about fatshion and clothing brands truthfully and honestly without worrying that if I say the wrong thing I’ll miss out on the chance to review some free clothes or worrying about losing advertisers. I like being able to go for months without buying any new clothes and not feel like I’m missing out on something. I love that I rarely even look at how much traffic my blog is getting these days. I’m interested in creating an online space for myself where I can write about anything from feminism to music to fashion because I’m interested in presenting myself as a multi-faceted person, and not as someone who is willing to sell out my ideals for a few bucks, some free clothes or ‘brand relationships’.

(This blog post was somewhat inspired by a series of awesome posts Definatalie has written lately.)

The post Earning Money From My Blog Sucked All The Fun Out Of It: Fatshion Blogging, Advertising, Consumerism And Ethics appeared first on Fat Aus.

dress: target, shoes: urban outfitters, sunglasses: karen walker.

The post Outfit: November 21st 2012 appeared first on Fat Aus.