"Extreme Makeover" by Teresa Tomeo

Have you seen Teresa Tomeo's new book published by Ignatius Press? It's making quite a splash. Here's a bit about it:

Popular radio host Teresa Tomeo knows from experience that the self-image of American women is being distorted by pop culture. with its emphasis on youth, physical beauty, and sexuality, the secular media is encouraging women—and girls—to see themselves primarily as sex objects. a former television news reporter, tomeo pulls together the latest research on social behavior and trends to demonstrate that women are harming themselves and their chances for true happiness by adopting the thoroughly modern, sexually liberated lifestyle portrayed in magazines and movies. Packed with not only persuasive statistics but also powerful personal testimonies, Extreme Makeover shows that it is not the slogans of the sexual revolution and the women’s liberation movement that free and dignify women, but the beautiful teachings of the 

Catholic Church. 

In her new book, Tomeo writes about the type of “extreme makeover” one will never see on television. Extreme Makeover: Women Transformed by Christ not Conformed to the Culture will be published in October by Ignatius Press.

“Our media and culture continue to reinforce in the minds of girls and young women that their intrinsic self-worth is founded in their value as nothing more than a sexual object,” Tomeo said. “How can our society expect women to be treated fairly and with dignity when our culture continues to portray them as mere objects? The new fall TV series ‘The Playboy Club’ on NBC is just another example of how women continue to be objectified and sexualized through the media. Shows like this glamorize pornography – a problem that has been devastating to marriages, families and society in general.”

Tomeo doesn’t deal just with this issue in Extreme Makeover. She tackles many others that remain important to women of all ages, and she offers solutions in her own collective assessment of the state of the world. “The culture can be toxic in terms of desensitizing us to violence, weakening our moral fiber, and making us feel pretty darn disgusted with ourselves because we’re not five foot nine and a size 2,” Tomeo writes in the book. “So how do we respond?”

She answers that and many other questions in Extreme Makeover, and includes a section with stories about women who have transformed themselves by focusing on what God intends them to be – not what the media and culture tells them they must be in order to feel good about themselves.

“(Teresa) Tomeo knows the pressures and dishonesties facing women in modern American culture from firsthand experience,” said Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M., Cap., of Philadelphia, “and she leads women to Jesus Christ with compelling personal testimonies and uncommon persuasive skill. For any woman who seeks the true foundation of her dignity, this is the book to read and to share.”

Praise for Teresa's book: “Teresa Tomeo is a passionate and persuasive apologist for the Catholic faith. In Extreme Makeover, she offers an earthy, candid, refreshing rejoinder to conventional feminist wisdom and builds a solid case for the liberating power of Catholic orthodoxy.” 

Colleen Carroll Campbell 

TV & radio host, author, The New Faithful