Today’s post comes to us from Christina. Fair warning, she uses the word boobs a lot, but because it’s October, and we support breast cancer awareness. We told you we’d be covering the topic. 

Boobs, Books and Women’s Health

I opened Glamour Magazine this month to find a half-page spread of thumbnail-sized images of around thirty gals’ boobs. The headline told me we women should be able to pick our boobs out of a lineup. In addition to writing about women’s health in every issue, each October, Glamour devotes many of their pages to breast cancer awareness; that’s how the thumbnail-sized boobs made it to this month’s pages. And I was mesmerized by those thumbnails.

It’s not every day that we see regular looking boobs in print. Regular boobs are so refreshing. Droopy boobs, lopsided boobs, miniscule boobs. I do realize this is a publishing website and not a porn spot, but I’m going somewhere here.

I think the reason I was drawn to that article is the same reason I’m drawn to certain books. It’s the reason I read Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret about twelve times growing up. Margaret’s life was so completely relatable, and it made me feel normal. While the Sweet Valley Twins were busy solving crimes and being blond and twins and all, I was falling in love with Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing and enjoying knowing other people loathed their brothers and got in fights with their parents. Don’t get me wrong; in addition to reading about regular people, I’ve always intermixed stories about the glamorous and adventure-seeking, but it’s the flawed characters with insecurities that I come back to again and again.

Some of you are out there toying with what to write about. And while I’m thankful for those of you who are writing the next zombie thriller or crime mystery (because I read the heck out of those, too), I also hope there are those out there writing about everyday people to whom we can relate, characters we’ll revisit year after year and reread and remember ten years later. And once you’re finished, Kbuuk is here to publish for it you. Here’s to women’s health, regular boobs, and relatable books.