Strong Woman Era – by Saffron Hooton

The premise here is to embrace strength without compromising femininity, and as such, the author gives a simple guide to strength training, along with assorted energizing pep-talks along the way.

It’s a short read, about 150 pages if we count only the book content itself, and that’s with large print, easy-reading line spacing, generous margins, and a lot of artwork.

On which note, the artwork really is that: artwork; even for the exercises, it’s not actually particularly informational, and adds only a very general idea of what one point in the exercise might look like. Which is unfortunate, because the explanations can also be a little unclear in places.

The style is upbeat and motivational with a sort of 90s girl-power feel to it. There’s no hard science, claims are made without sources (reasonable claims, but still, we’d rather have seen sources), and certainly nothing is complicated. In fact, some parts could probably have stood to be a bit more complicated—in other words, some things were perhaps oversimplified a little where a more comprehensive treatment might have been helpful.

Bottom line: this is a very aesthetically pleasing book; it’ll look great on your shelf and can be quite nice to flip through. At 8oz, it can be used as a paperweight, but not a doorstop.

Click here to check out Strong Woman Era, and brighten up your bookshelf!