The Babe with the Power is an inspiring memoir about one woman’s genesis from fatherless, fat-shamed child to embodied engineer and triathlete. This book is for any woman who has ever felt worthless, powerless, or trapped in a cycle of body shame and victimhood.

Joyel Marie grew up not knowing who her father was. A brown girl in a family of white faces, she stuffed her self-hatred down with each bite. Inspired by the Jim Henson film Labyrinth, Joyel recounts the traumas that caused her to build her own winding walls of shame and depression and how she tore them down block by block.

From the grandmother who talked to walls to the nun who pinched her fat in Catholic school, the cast of characters in Joyel’s life reads like fiction. She vulnerably takes us through her rocky childhood, her wild college days, her alcohol-soaked first marriage, and her suicidal episodes as a new mother. We cheer as she fights her way up in a male-dominated industry, and we commiserate in her endless attempts at failed diets.

The Babe with the Power is an honest portrayal of the dichotomies and complexities of being a woman in today’s world. It will have listeners nodding their heads, grabbing for tissues, and ultimately finding their own power within.