Review: UNFILTERED by Lily Collins

FACTS ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: Unfiltered
Author: Lily Collins
Publisher: Harper
Price: $18.99 

Pages: 221
Genre: Memoir
Year: 2017

BACK OF THE BOOK / WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

Opening up can be scary.

We worry that no one can relate to us or understand our problems.

We worry that our struggles define us and that our quirks make us weird.

But believe me: if you open up and let go, the only thing you'll feel is free.

Using our voices allows us to connect with one another and realize we're never alone.

We are encouraged, inspired, and supported.

The sooner we accept our stories for all that they are and the sooner we let go of the shame, regrets, and fear surrounding our experiences - the sooner we can live, love, and be loved.

The time to be unfiltered is now.

-

In this groundbreaking debut essay collection, featuring never-before-seen photos, actress Lily Collins—star of Mortal Instruments and the upcoming Rules Don’t Apply—is opening a poignant, honest conversation about the things young women struggle with: body image, self-confidence, relationships, family, dating, and so much more.

For the first time ever, Lily shares her life and her own deepest secrets, underlining that every single one of us experiences pain and heartbreak. We all understand what it’s like to live in the light and in the dark. For Lily, it’s about making it through to the other side, where you love what you see in the mirror and where you embrace yourself just as you are. She's learned that all it takes is one person standing up and saying something for everyone else to realize they’re not alone.

By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Lily’s honest voice will inspire you to be who you are and say what you feel. It’s time to claim your voice! It’s time to live your life unfiltered. 

(Source: Goodreads)

MY THOUGHTS ON IT

I wouldn't say that I'm a massive fan of Lily Collins since I didn't even follow her on Instagram when I read this book and only did so afterwards. But I really enjoy her movies and especially Love, Rosie has a special place in my heart. I also think that she is incredibly pretty and I was always a huge fan of her eyebrows. So I was interested in this book not because I'm hugely invested in her but rather because such books have always fascinated me and since Lily Collins seemed to have something to tell because of her famous father Phil Collins and because of her anorexia, I was interested in Unfiltered. 

The book is structured into 17 chapters with the following titles:

1. The Quirky Things That Make You Different Are What Make You Beautiful

2. "When Someone Shows You Who They Are, Believe Them"

3. We Accept The Love We Think We Deserve

4. Great Disappearing Acts

5. My Battle For Perfection

6. My Mom: The Myth, The Legend

7. Every Tattoo Tells A Story

8. Be Silly. It's Attractive. Normal Is So Boring.

9. A Letter To All Dads

10. Harnessing Your Inner Superhero

11. In A Relationship With Addiction

12. Food As Fuel, Not Punishment

13. Spilling Our Secrets

14. Talk More, Create Connections

15. From Pen To Paper And Beyond

16. Everything Happens For A Reason

17. Seoul Searching

These 17 chapters take up about 200 pages and are therefore very short and easy to read through. Each chapter starts with the most important message of it, written in the same font as the one used on the cover, which gives the book a nice and lovely structure. The book also includes lots of pictures of Lily which add a very personal vibe to it. Both of this also means, of course, that there isn't too much space used for the actual texts, but that didn't really bother me.

I read this book during a stressful time, when I was just writing my term paper, and therefore I really appreciated the lightness of this book and that it didn't demand too much of my concentration but was rather just a lovely comfort-read to come back to at the end of an exhausting day.

I could instantly relate a lot to the book when Lily started talking about her eyebrows, already fairly at the beginning. She also early on mentioned that she loved complementing other people and strangers, which is something that I love to do as well, so I felt quite understood by her and could relate to her and the book. 

The second chapter's most important message really resonated with me and I cannot stress this enough to others:

I will never need anyone to complete me.

I am enough on my own.

I really loved and appreciated that Lily again and again mentioned the importance of self-love in her book. This is so extremely important and I really hope that when more and more people talk about it and separate it from its negative side, egocentrism, that it will reach many people, especially young ones.

Lily dedicated a chapter to her mother and one to her father. Obviously, most people who know of her father's fame will be more interested in that chapter. But I really loved the mother chapter more because the way in which Lily talked about her bond with her mother touched me a lot and the pictures of them added an emotional depth to it. 

When it came to her father, I always felt that Lily was still holding back some things, although she always stressed that she was being so honest and unfiltered. I felt that she didn't get to the core of her relationship with her father, which is probably because he is famous and has a reputation that she didn't want to chip away at.. 

Lily also talks a lot about her past relationships and I just couldn't help myself from always asking whether she was talking about Jamie Campbell Bower, whenever she wrote about an ex of hers. That's probably because Jamie is the only exboyfriend that I know of and also the one that I'm quite interested in because I really shipped the two of them (#Jamily). I was never too invested in the Mortal Instruments series but I couldn't deny that these two had some sparkling, electrifying chemistry on and off screen.

There is a chapter in the book in which Lily talks about her tattoos and what they mean to her, which I found very interesting and surprising. Again, this is probably because I didn't really follow her on Instagram before, but it really surprised me that she had so many tattoos and that she was so obsessed with tattoos in general. Since I haven't read too much about tattoos in memoir-like-books before, this chapter was quite refreshing. 

As I've already mentioned, Lily suffered from anorexia and also writes about that and her problematic relationship with food in the book. There are lots of pictures of food in it but since all pictures are in black and white, the food doesn't really come across too well. It's kind of weird to see a dish in black and white, it makes it look quite morbid to be honest. 

I took issue with the fact that Lily always mentioned that something was inherently female, like cooking and nurturing. That felt very much like gender stereotypes to me and I didn't agree with that and felt a bit uncomfortable that she stated these feelings of her as facts. 

Maybe the most interesting chapter for me was "Talk More, Create Connections" in which she talked about body issues and body positivity. Unfortunately, this was also the shortest chapter and was already over before it had even started. I really wished that Lily had written a bit more there.

At the end of the book is the longest Acknowledgments section that I've ever read. I always read this part because it rounds off the book and I just don't see any reason why I shouldn't read it. But I really struggled with myself when it came to Lily's acknowledgments ... They just went on and on and on and on and never seemed to end. They were longer than the chapters of the book which I found a bit silly because I would have much rather read more on body positivity than have such a huge amount of pages used up for her thanking thousands of people that none of her readers know. Her acknowledgments go on for 17 pages, which I think is just way too much and over the top. 

CONCLUSION

I enjoyed this book because it was a light and comforting read that calmed me down during a stressful time. It's very easy and quickly to read through and is beautifully made with lovely fonts and lots of private pictures of Lily. This book definitely brings you closer to Lily Collins. If you are a huge fan of hers, you've probably already read it and if not, I can definitely recommend it to you. If you are like me, not a huge fan but still interested in her and the book than I can also recommend it because I had a really nice time reading it. If you are not a fan of hers than this is probably nothing for you because it's quite personal and very centered on Lily.

I wish that she had gone a bit deeper in the book, especially since she always praised herself for opening up and being so completely honest and unfiltered in it. I still felt like she was holding back a bit on some topics, especially concerning her father. It sometimes felt as if the book was only scratching the surface.. Other times it did make me quite emotional, which I always appreciate in books. 

RATING

I award this book 4 out of 5 stars.