big beautiful female theory

Shortlisted for the 2023 Stella Prize

Shortlisted for the 2023 Indie Book Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction

Highly commended in the 2023 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Nonfiction

Highly commended in the 2021 Peter Blazey Award

Details

Release Date: 28 June 2022
ISBN: 9781922626882
Paperback,  304 pages
Full-colour artwork throughout
218 x 160 mm
Memoir

Published by Affirm Press (more details on the book and an excerpt can be found on their website)

Purchase details

Order from Readings, Paperback, Neighbourhood, the Sun, or your favourite local, independent bookshop.

Blurb

Part feminist manifesto, part comic book, big beautiful female theory is a carnivalesque exploration of the ways identity is formed through culture, relationships and the weight of society’s expectations. Without falling into a simple recovery narrative, these essays also resonate with humour, which gives a sense of delight and optimism in defiance of difficult circumstances and unfair patriarchal structures.

With breathtaking honesty and fierce wit, Eloise Grills turns her life, her body and her mind into art, confronting what it means to grow up in an increasingly unfathomable world.

Reviews and other media

Praise for big beautiful female theory

‘Oh [Eloise] your words fuck me up in a good way. If I were a tween on TikTok I’d call you mother and queen and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But I’m not, so I’ll just say thank you for what you make and say’.

—Lena Dunham, creator of HBO’s GIRLS and director of Tiny Furniture

‘big beautiful female theory is the blistering, fearless manifesto on the fat female form I have been waiting for all my life. It is hot, it is ribald, it is sweaty, loopy, pulpy, and remarkably tender. Grills is my Philosopher Queen of the bodily berserk. The world is better for having this book in it.’

 —Ellena Savage, author of BLUEBERRIES

‘Impossibly brilliant – books that change culture and clear space for other writers to come are usually not this funny, funny-as-all-hell books are usually not this formally daring, formally daring books don’t embrace the confessional, confessional works aren’t generally blisteringly political, political books are not usually this level of sexy, sexy books are not, for the most part or maybe without exception, this devastating.’

—Maria Tumarkin, Windham Campbell-winning author of AXIOMATIC

‘Eloise Grills’ essays fluctuate between decadent mixed media and sparse, thoughtful watercolours. Sidelong glances and gorgeous bodies and swirling water illustrate a collection of writing that is often funny and candid, and always generous. 

This collection is one to be savoured and revisited.’

—Lee Lai, author of STONE FRUIT

‘Eloise Grills amazes me—she's vulnerable but also commanding, hilarious but also dead-serious, precise in her language but also wild in her art. big beautiful female theory is unlike anything I've ever read—it's a truly unforgettable book.’

—Chelsea Hodson, author of TONIGHT I’M SOMEONE ELSE

‘In its structure, subject matter and—probably most importantly—its attitude, this book is a delightful ‘up yours’ to the stale, pale, maleness of how Western culture views and articulates the body in written and visual art. This is nonfiction at its very best: captivating and exciting.’

—Kill Your Darlings

Grills’ curated gut-spillage requires all of the adjectives and a whole lot of adverbs; intellectual, creative, irreverent. Invincibly vulnerable. Fragmentarily cohesive. Contradictory. Funny. Beautiful.’

—ArtsHub

‘Combines feminist theory and memoir with playful illustrations in a riotous exploration of the beauty industry, consumerism and sexuality.’

—The Age/SMH

‘A boisterous examination of beauty standards, sexuality, misogyny, consumerism and the cruel vicissitudes of modern life. Part memoir, part cultural commentary, the book shapeshifts between prose and vibrant, energetic illustrations. It’s not really a graphic novel, it’s not quite poetry – it’s an electrifying mix of both … The book unflinchingly portrays the despair of living in a fat-hating world, but also offers a defiant manifesto for survival within that world.’

—Readings

‘Blazing with feeling, the book is ecstatic, exhaustive self-expression, drenched in watercolour and hectic sincerity: William Blake edits Rookie magazine.’

—Meanjin

‘Self-aware and self-excoriating.’

—ABC Arts (Best books of June)

‘A raw, honest, and playfully executed memoir.’

—Bendigo Advertiser

‘One minute playful, the next self-lacerating, big beautiful female theory defies literary and theoretical categorisation, parodying excess even as it revels in it’.

—The Saturday Age/SMH

‘If I could send one book back in space­–time to reach that bulimic self who covered her bedroom walls with images of Kate Moss circa 1993 and tell that girl, maybe you don’t want to be Kate Moss, you just want to smoosh against her like your Barbies, Eloise Grills’ big beautiful female theory would be that book. I would prescribe this pink-edged volume as antidote to diet culture, internalised misogyny and body dysmorphia. Equal parts beautiful monster and cyborg fantasy, pop culture and high theory, Grills’ collection of illustrated essays is a joyride for people who’ve felt like aliens in their own bodies.’

—Overland

‘It’s a total vibe if you’re keen for pretty-but-slightly-pervy art mixed with thought-provoking feminist analysis of the way women and female-presenting folk experience their bodies and other people’s reactions to their bodies. I (re)learnt some feminist theory, I was introduced to new artists, I admired Eloise’s way with words, I was fascinated by some of her confessions in the memoir side of it all. Buy this for your feminist friend for Christmas, if she doesn’t already own it.’

—Rebecca Douglas (Becks and the City)

‘Big beautiful female theory … is the book equivalent of my best friend. This graphic memoir/political statement just gets me in all its obscene glory.’

—Anne Fagan, Fullers Bookshop manager

‘A blazing example of the overwhelming power of personal stories.’

—Mona Magazine

Eloise Grills takes our gaze to task in big beautiful female theory. The book as an object alone is ambitious enough to warrant recognition. Grills transforms writings (impressive in their own right) into visual essayistic feasts for the reader. At times theoretical, heavy but not dense, her work attends to an under-examined body in Australian literature. It’s a body onto which, Grills demonstrates, much of our cultural imaginary silently attaches, then loathes and fears – the fat body. big beautiful female theory is disarmingly raw, both in what it reveals about its narrator and subject, and in its deceivingly slapdash composition. But Grills maintains a self-awareness that’s rarely self-indulgent, and at times zooms out from introspection without the suspicion of the reader – and then it implicates us.

—Stella Prize Judges’ Report 2023