All I Ever Wanted Was To Be Hot

by Lucinda Price

'I have always known that a woman's greatest power is her looks. For most of my life, I just took it as the way things were, a fact not worth interrogating since it was so obviously true.'

For her entire life, Lucinda's mission was to look as hot as possible. She nipped, tucked, bleached, cut, plucked, plumped, shaved, lasered, tanned, crunched, squatted and starved. Then, she broke.

All I Ever Wanted Was To Be Hot is a funny, provocative retrospective on the last thirty years of Western beauty standards. From Victoria's Secret to Extreme Makeover, Playboy Bunnies to the Australian media's fascination with Lara Bingle, Lucinda unfurls the tentacles of a culture hellbent on making women feel like happiness is always just five kilos away.

With her offbeat humour and incisive cultural commentary, Lucinda tells the unfiltered story of someone overcoming an eating disorder and rebuilding, illuminating our enduring obsession with appearance by holding a bedazzled mirror up to her own beliefs.

A hilarious, insightful deep dive into self image, desirability, pop-culture and power.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook, Feminism, Biography, Book Club, Self Help

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2024

Reviews

[Alright Hey (Matt) · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is my new Roman Empire.
It’s a little strange reading a book by someone you know. Will I be biased? Will I feel bad if I have to give it a bad review? What if I hate it?

Obviously I need to be honest in a review, regardless of my relationship to the person. Thankfully, Froomes knocked this one out of the park and I didn’t need to worry about any of that.

I am recommending this book to EVERYONE. But more specifically: women, millennials, queer people, people who have experience with eating disorders, doctors, nurses, and the pussycat dolls.

Lucinda’s writing style.. Chefs kiss. The most entertaining, insightful, well thought out, funny, intelligent writing I’ve ever read. Granted, my bias may come into play here, as she’s one of my friends and of course I’d love her style because I love her in general. But this book was truly another level. There were no boring bits.

I think the best part was that I learnt so much. About society. About living as a woman in early 2000’s Australia. But most importantly, I learnt a lot about myself. This was a book that made me look inside myself and the way I’ve treated myself, the way others treat me and the way I treat other people.

I am coming out the other end of this book as a better person and I want everyone to read this book, so that you can do the same LMAO.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Mary McCormack · Rating 5 out of 5]

put this on the school curriculum

I am now religious

[Corah Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this as a fat dyke was… challenging at times. While it was a great book overall and I think will be useful to quite a number of Australian women, it just didn’t get to the full WHY of it all.

While scrutinising diet culture, mother daughter relationships, fatphobia etc it does almosttttt get there, with subtle nods towards racism and patriarchy. But those two things are the absolute root of the issue and they’re just not interrogated enough.

As a white woman raised under the same Australian beauty standards, learning about the links between anti blackness and anti fatness, this diet culture and the ideal (and obviously Eurocentric) body types caused me to undo the entirety of my thinking. The book Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings genuinely changed my life and rewired my entire brain when it came to the topics being interrogated in this book. I’d recommend anyone who wants to do further interrogation, read Strings book.

Whilst I understand maybe Lucinda didn’t think it was her place, to speak for women of colour, I just think if you’re going to interrogate modern beauty standards and often lightly mention the racism of it all, really do it. It felt like it was shying away from the actual hard hitting truth, which to me led it to feel shallow. Interrogate the racism and the links between whiteness and power and how that is inextricably linked to the patriarchy and men’s control over women to maintain control of the world. Go deeper! Because this book went deep, I was just disappointed it only scratched the surface of the actual answer. The radical fact that anti fatness is a tool of the patriarchy, and thus capitalism.

Maybe this sounds like an insane persons rant, I really did enjoy this book and will recommend it to others. It’s just perhaps not as radical when you live in a fat, POC, queer or disabled body. It almost gives the same feeling of when men finally discover empathy and everyone around is like…. Yeah we knew that. That sounds cruel, it’s a good read and the personal anecdotes really were carefully crafted and lovingly thought out.

I also found at times it jumped around a bit, like in chapter two it talked about her going blonde for the first time in year 9 and then I think later in the same chapter it talks about how she “finally did it” when referring to going blonde and details the process again, which was mildly confusing. The references whilst maybe a touch too old for me, were also entertaining. Would recommend the audiobook as her accent (rather our accent as a fellow Aussie) ties it all together so well.

[Rose H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Froomey… as if I wasn’t already obsessed with your newsletters, this has truly cemented you as one of my fave writers!!! This book perfectly balanced seriousness and sensitivity with perfect pop culture references and so many moments where I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, sometimes along with you during the audiobook lol (my fave of your giggles at yourself was at the end when you said stupid people who think they’re smart) 😭💞 I hope there are many more books from Lucinda Price to come! 🙏

[Saskia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ Very well written and insightful look at the experience of disordered eating. While there wasn’t anything I found revolutionary compared to other writers speaking to their experiences, it was fascinating to hear about it in the same cultural landscape I grew up in.

[Tegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow I truly have not had a single unique experience in my life. I loved this so much more than I expected to! But a tough read at times, which tbf, is expected given the topics.

[Amelia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2⭐️ took me AGES to read. Didn’t finish before book club. SHAME. Interesting to read someone else’s experience but could not relate to 90% of this books contents. Enjoyed the nostalgic comments but the writing did get a bit tired by the end

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book is really important & I am so glad to see the positive impact it is having on individuals. However, I just could not resonate with the writing, it felt very "online" at times, but maybe I'm out of touch. Further, often plot points were spoken to again, as if for the first time, which made the book feel repetitive & carelessly written. I was hoping that this book would be more of a subversive critical analysis of Australian cultural norms & harmful ideals but it just didn't dig into any one issue deep enough to do so. I was also disappointed that the concluding message was to still strive for "hotness", albeit just redefined ... :-(

[Jayden]

froomes you will always be famous

[Eloise Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

NEED to rewatch Hating Alison Ashley (saving review for book club! 💖)

[Pip G · Rating 4 out of 5]

BRILLIANT! 4 stars ⭐️ I loved how Lucinda tied in the nuances of growing up in Australia - in particular the south east of Melbourne, which happens to be where I grew up too. She also went on to study the same degree as me - in the same year might I add (flex😉). Although I have been fortunate to not be heavily effected by the pressures society puts on us as young women to look a particular way (resulting in extreme dieting, eating disorders, plastic surgery/cosmetic procedures, mental health issues) I would be lying if I said I can’t relate to what she has written about. I’ve worked really hard to pull myself out of hating my body and physical self as a teenager/ early 20s. As young women we are told to critique ourselves, to always be self improving, to idealise a particular look, to compare ourselves to the person next to us. I relate with: being tormented when my bleach blonde child hair turned dark brown, thinking my body needed to look a particular way, critiquing parts of myself, comparing myself to others, unhealthy dieting. We are encouraged to “dislike” ourselves, to “strive” for something which is unattainable. Now at 29, I look at my body with love and appreciation. I’m grateful for my health, and for my strong body which lets me do so much.

I found this book at times hard to read because of how extreme Lucinda’s experience with body dysmorphia was. But I appreciate that we needed to understand how intense and all encompassing the condition was for her.

I really think this book will be so useful to those experiencing OCD, body dismorphia, anorexia and bulimia, and I think Lucinda beautiful ties in the heartbreaking parts with humour and nostalgia.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Price provides an honest and concise look at the way our body image is attacked and manipulated for profit through the lens of her experience. Growing up in the Melbourne South East only made her experience hit even closer to home.

I was blindsided while reading this by how much Price’s reflections struck a sore point for me. Having undergone quite significant cosmetic surgery that did not feel optional at an even younger age than Froomes’ nose job, I found a lot of her thoughts on her experiences more familiar than I was expecting when I started reading. I found myself rocked by the reminder of that potent mixture of sadness and stoicism that comes with knowing a body modification is not medically necessary, and yet completely unbearable to go without. Much like Froomes I was much happier post-op, but unlike her, I had never thought to look back and wonder why it was so necessary at the time.

While women are under far more pressure to modify their bodies, it is hard to find someone of my generation who has not engaged in some form of physical alteration to meet the aesthetic requirements of ‘normality’. From nose jobs to braces to weight loss, there is so much about how we should look that felt predetermined while growing up. Facing the numerous insidious ways our bodies are measured as ‘wrong’ for no reason beyond someone having a product to sell us, or a hierarchy to flaunt, is cathartic.

Froomes took us through several body image crises from cosmetic surgeries, to eating disorders, to ozempic and fat shaming, and remained engaging and thoughtful all the way through.

While I think there is much more to say on this subject, and we likely will never fully escape our body image woes, Froomes does a great job of building solidarity from her own experiences.

[Jess Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4⭐️ really appreciated that Price didn’t shy away from telling it like it is. She is brutally honest with you the whole way through about her own thoughts, feelings, and the motivations behind her actions which don’t always paint her in the best light. I respected this starkness, and found the book both relatable and enlightening.

[Hanna El Shorbagy · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS is the type of book every woman should read in their lifetime. I am blown away by the relevance and exposure of my own bias this has made me think about.
it’s such a good critique of old media and television programs and adds. i had forgotten how horriffic early 2000s tv was and yet it was so normal?? Every person that reads this will relate to one thing or another. A beautifully written, well researched and humorous tale on growing up as a woman and learning to love and cherish your body.
Froomes depicted the early Australian childhood/primary school scene so well - i felt nostalgic. Then the later chapters provided such a unique and thought provoking insight into fatphobia and how it’s lingering presence in society continues to reign terror and damage us all.

I highly highly recommend. The audiobook felt like listening to a very well educated friend rant. I will be thinking about this for a long time. 10/10

[Jade Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Froomes is so brave for writing this book! She tackled a huge topic and I found her voice relatable and so honest. Also made me LOL lots of times. I wasn’t expecting it to be as research-heavy as it was, it was a bit like reading a long journalistic feature article at times. But she really captured what it was like growing up in the early 2000s in Australia and the HORRIBLE body image messaging we’ve been exposed to.

[Melcat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book immediately caught my eye and after reading the blurb I knew I had to buy it. Having just moved to Australia, I was excited to dive into a book by an Australian woman that explores the relentless beauty standards women faced growing up in the 2000s. I hadn’t heard of Froomes before, but she’s incredibly funny and clearly knows how to write.

I saw so much of my own experience in hers and devoured (pun intended) this book in no time. Her vulnerability detailing her experiences with plastic surgery and an eating disorder really resonated with me. She’s made an admirable journey in shifting her mindset on these issues, and she comes across as both hilarious and remarkably brave. I’m glad I picked this one up.

One quote that really stayed with me: "Did I do it because I wanted to be sexy? No—I did it because I wanted to be normal, and, to adolescent me, normal meant perfect."

If that doesn’t speak to the adolescent in you, you were very lucky in your childhood.

[Laura Blundy Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really thought we were going to arrive at the realisation that being hot doesn’t need to be a primary life goal. We did not.

[Abigail · Rating 1 out of 5]

Firstly, hats off to Price to writing so candidly about her eating disorder. I think it takes a lot of bravery for a person to open themselves up in that way, particularly someone part of the public sphere.

With that being said, I did not enjoy this book. Price seems to be blissfully unaware of the fact that her book is not relatable to many Australians. She appears to virtue signal in select topics, and then seems to be completely unaware of how un-PC she comes across in others.

She appears to me to be totally out of touch with the non-white sector of Australian women. She also fails to realise how she actually feeds into current beauty standards with some of her comments.

Would you like some evidence behind that claim? Gladly.

Pp 38-39: Price inserts the following quote from her mixed race friend: ‘Because I’m mixed-race, it is so much easier for me to “compartmentalise” parts of my lineage in a way that people of colour, across the whole, can’t necessarily do. I remember saying to a friend of mine that I didn’t like my “ethnic” nose, and she is South Asian and literally grimaced. And I was mortified.’

It is fine if your friend doesn’t identify as a person of colour, but generally a mixed-race person wouldn’t be considered separate from a person of colour. Perhaps a little comment about that. Unless your mixed-race friend means that she could get away with looking white? Also, what a huge generalisation about people who do not have obvious Caucasian heritage. Since when do noses come from one race? Since when does a strong chin or big ears come from one race alone? Not really sure what point you were trying to make by including this quote, but it just didn’t land well.

P39: Price states ‘I can’t relate to having a nose that is tied to a certain ethnicity - my heritage is a mutt-like mix of English, Scottish and Irish’.

First of all, what you are describing is a person of likely Anglo-Saxon descent (perhaps Celtic, Scandinavian and Norman as well, if you want to get picky). But broadly, Caucasian. So are you saying that Caucasian noses are the ‘normal’ and standard nose, whereas other noses that are broad or flat are the non-normal noses and their ethnicities can be easily guessed from this?
All this talk about noses and how they are linked to certain types of races is very reminiscent of the 1930s and 40s…

P129: ‘I had never been teased or ‘othered’ because I had always been a ‘standard’ size’.

What does ‘standard’ size mean? Just because you’ve put ‘standard’ in quotation marks doesn’t mean you can get away with saying this type of thing in a book about body image! Isn’t a whole section of your book dedicated to Ozempic and criticising people who you don’t feel need Ozempic? Wait, wasn’t the book supposed to be educating the Australian population on how high Australian beauty standards are and how women are constantly othered in popular culture? Well, you nailed it there.

P133: Price proudly boasts about getting a job where she stated that she was an intersectional feminist on her resume. She goes on to admit that at the time she didn’t know what it meant. She then goes to say that that’s what helped her get the job: ‘A girlboss was born’.

Just pretend you are a reader who actually has to deal with intersectionality on a day to day basis, then read it in their voice. I understand that you’re making a comment regarding feminism and how having feminist views has traditionally been thought of as a liability in the workplace, but could you not have at least put in a section about how you knew it was wrong and that you know what it is now? A heterosexual white woman from a middle-class household boasting about how she doesn’t know what intersectional feminism means is not a vibe.

P215: she states that her grandmother ‘had an unusually small frame’ and that ‘[t]he waist of [her] cream lace mini-dress […] would fit a prepubescent girl’.

Again, unsure if you’re trying to be funny here, but given that you’ve written a book about body image, this comment doesn’t read well. Have you had a think about all the body types that exist in our society? Have you thought that there are perhaps certain peoples who tend to have smaller body frames than Caucasian peoples? So is what you are actually saying is that your grandmother had a prepubescent waist for a white person?

P262: ‘Symptoms of gallstones can include high temperature, rapid heartbeat, jaundice, diarrhoea and confusion’.

I know that you’re not a medical professional and there is no crime in that, but as a doctor I can tell you that these are not the symptoms of gallstones. I think you meant to say the complications of gallstones. If you are going to write a statement like that then perhaps throw in a reference, particularly considering how much of the book is spent disparaging medical professionals.

TLDR:
Essentially my problem with this book is the fact that Price is incongruently politically correct with some issues, but then blatantly insensitive with others, especially with regard to race. She doesn’t seem to recognise anywhere in the book that Australia is not just full of white people. One might argue that she can only write about her experience as a white woman; however she herself has claimed that the book is about Australian beauty standards. Nowhere in the book was it specified that the beauty standards she speaks of are white beauty standards, predominantly applicable to white women - although this fact becomes clear on reading it.

Australian people of colour? Give this one a miss. And if you do read it, be sure to get your info about gallstones elsewhere. 1 star.

[Mala Darmadi-Blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

Just finished the book this morning, letting it sit with me before diving into why this book resonated so much with me.

[Lucy Vari · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an important book! Can it be required reading in schools?? It is filled with sharp observations but I appreciated when Froomes highlighted how the conversation on whether or not it was "easier" to grow up before the age of social media is distracting us from noticing that history is simply repeating itself in new forms. Will now be reading more from Froomes!!

[Kate McNab · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection

[josie · Rating 2 out of 5]

rated: 2 stars

this is a book for a very specific subset of australian women, and it is not me. not to sound like a pick me girlie, but i've never had the body image issues that most of the girls around me had in high school, but i'm attributing that down to my struggles with my body being focused elsewhere (see: disability, wanting a functional body, and to live without chronic pain).

while there is something to be said for the author's bravery in putting her own story with mental illness down on paper, whenever she deviates away from her own story she came across as quite self-absorbed, and almost blissfully unaware that her surface level takes on body image are only relatable to the aforementioned specific subset of australian women, and no one else. the part where the author calls herself an intersectional feminist in a job interview, and then professes that she actually has no idea what it means when pushed on that... basically sums up the experience of reading this book. the way the descriptions in this book read tells me that there have been very limited points, if any at all, in this author's life where she has had to live out intersectionality.

she dances around the impact that race or culture, age or gender, or any other factor has had on shaping the australian beauty standard, acknowledging that these things exist in a brief mention, but making absolutely no effort to think critically about what that actually means for her, the reader, or the world. there are moments where others talk about their experiences, but they are still examined through froomes' eyes, which still makes it feel a bit self-centered. she also speedruns through moments of shaming other women for their choices, particularly when she talks about ozempic, and even when she professes how much she hates when other women do that to her. if this book was just a description of her own story i would not have these problems, but this books placement as an examination of all of australia's issues with body image. if you want to write a book about all of australia... talk about all of australia.

to be frank, as someone that was forced at a very early age to grapple with the notion that i cannot do everything and be anyone i wanted to be solely because of the body i was born into, this book almost felt like a patronising walk through her world to explain empathy for the first time to people who were born with pretty privilege, saying to them "did you know that your behaviour impacts others? did you?" if you need that reminder though... then this might just be the book for you?

[Emma Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m obsessed with this book. The most honest, hilarious and cleverly written encapsulation of all the experiences we share as women who grew up in the 2000s. It was personal yet so well researched. It addressed eating disorders in a way that confronted the ugly realities of living with one without including unnecessary, potentially triggering details. It actually had more than a couple of pages about recovery (more than any other eating disorder related memoir I’ve read) and gave specific, tangible advice. It’s the book I wished I could’ve read when I was younger and looking for comfort and understanding of what I was going through. It’s the book I wish my parents could’ve read when they thought the way they spoke about their bodies wouldn’t have a flow on effect. It’s the book everyone needs to read and it’s the book I know I’ll revisit time and time again when I need a laugh, reminder or little glimpse of hope. Radiating huge fan girl energy but I don’t care. Thank you, Froomes. It’s a pink and yellow spring!!!

[Sophia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really wanted to love this but actually a DNF for me :/ Quite repetitive themes and similar anecdotes for the first quarter and I lost interest. Maybe I didn’t get to the good stuff yet.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am newly religious and Froomes is my deity.

I loved this with every fibre of my being - my experiences are so well reflected in this book. Not only that, it was genuinely laugh out loud funny. I looked fucking nuts on the tram.

I’ve always been told that eating disorders are life-long illnesses that you can manage but never recover from, so to read a story where a recovery is demonstrated with such humour and grace is heartening and gives me real hope.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feel bad rating this 2 stars because I do really like Froomes and feel being critical of the work is somehow unsupportive… BUUUUT… aside from the chapters on her personal experience with cosmetic surgery, it’s just a very conservative approach to the subject matter. Bogged down in extensive but generic research, unwilling to comment too far one way or the other. I also think a resistance to go into gritty interpersonal dynamics limited this - we got a small window into her mothers eating habits but nothing at all about her relationships with men (romantic or otherwise), seemingly a missed opportunity considering the wider contribution of the male gaze in how women feel about the way they look?

[Hollie Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone go listen to Too Young by Phoenix.

[Billie-Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Froomes, you fucken legend. ❤️

[Toni Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Froomes so naturally loved her writing style! I listened to this as an audiobook and honestly best decision, it felt like listening to a funny and witty podcast (That obviously covered not so funny topics) I definitely feel like most Australian women that grew up in the 90s/ 2000s will get something out of this, and def a lot of nostalgia sprinkled throughout.
It feels weird to just talk about how funny and witty this read was without mentioning that this book is heavily based around disordered eating and how it almost feels like an inevitable reality of being an Aussie white girl that grew up in this era.
She also scratches the surface on racism, the patriarchy and fat-phobia, Which could be a good starting point for people who maybe haven’t dove deeper in to dismantling their privilege before.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone prone to disordered thinking around eating and who often struggles with body image, I found this memoir to be really helpful. By deconstructing her own views on body image and exploring what it means to be “hot,” “desirable,” or “healthy,” she helped me unpack and question my own secular and cultural beliefs around those things. While the book definitely doesn’t delve into areas that might be especially useful for Christians like me (and it never promised to), I think it still provides a strong foundation for making those connections if you’re wanting to seek them out.