What do you think?
Rate this book
Love and Justice: A Journey of Empowerment, Activism, and Embracing Black Beauty
The deeply personal story of artist, activist, and influencer Laetitia Ky, told through the powerful sculptures she creates with her own hair that embrace Black culture and beauty, the fight for social justice, and the journey toward self-love.
Laetitia Ky is a one-of-a-kind artist, activist, and creative voice based in Ivory Coast, West Africa. With the help of extensions, wool, wire, and thread, Ky sculpts her hair into unique and compelling art pieces that shine a light on, and ignite conversation around, social justice. Her bold and intimate storytelling, which she openly shares with her extensive social media audience, covers issues
• Sexism and internalized misogyny
• Racial oppression
• Reproductive rights and consent
• Harmful beauty standards
• Shame and its corrosive effect on mental health
• And more
Love and Justice is equal parts memoir, artwork, and feminist manifesto. Ky's striking words, combined with 135 remarkable photographs, offer empowerment and inspiration. She emerges from her exploration of justice and equality with a message of self-love, showing readers the path to loving themselves and their bodies, expressing their voices, and feeling more confident.
Through this celebration of women's empowerment, Ky extends a generous invitation to love ourselves, embrace our unique beauty, and to work toward a more just world.
Laetitia Ky is a one-of-a-kind artist, activist, and creative voice based in Ivory Coast, West Africa. With the help of extensions, wool, wire, and thread, Ky sculpts her hair into unique and compelling art pieces that shine a light on, and ignite conversation around, social justice. Her bold and intimate storytelling, which she openly shares with her extensive social media audience, covers issues
• Sexism and internalized misogyny
• Racial oppression
• Reproductive rights and consent
• Harmful beauty standards
• Shame and its corrosive effect on mental health
• And more
Love and Justice is equal parts memoir, artwork, and feminist manifesto. Ky's striking words, combined with 135 remarkable photographs, offer empowerment and inspiration. She emerges from her exploration of justice and equality with a message of self-love, showing readers the path to loving themselves and their bodies, expressing their voices, and feeling more confident.
Through this celebration of women's empowerment, Ky extends a generous invitation to love ourselves, embrace our unique beauty, and to work toward a more just world.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published April 5, 2022
11 people are currently reading
1275 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 30, 2022
Thank you to NetGalley and to Princeton Architectural Press for this eARC.
Laetitia Ky is a feminist Ivorian artist who makes sculptures with her hair. Amazing, right? I first came across her on Instagram, where I am one of her 494,000 followers. I am always blown away by the uniqueness of her chosen method of expression, and inspired by the power of her images. (Seriously: go and see that Instagram account.) I was excited to get an ARC of her book, out April 5, in which she shares her journey through essays with accompanying photographs in her inimitable style.
The book is divided into three sections: Celebrating My African Heritage, The Fight for Justice and the Equality of the Sexes, and Self-love. The essays are short, and written in Ky’s usual direct and unapologetically feminist voice. The photographs are fantastic. (I wish I could share screenshots, but you’ll just have to wait for the book.) I savoured it over three days, and pre-ordered my own — Kindle — 1copy halfway through, although tbh I’d do many things to get my hands on a hardcover copy for my theoretical coffee table.
Buy this book! Read it, then buy it for young women, and for young Black women especially. While its message will be most powerful for young women like Ky, it is also for any woman who needs to be reminded about how to be resilient in the face all that women go through. It is a wonderful celebration, and a defiant shout.
Rated: 10/10.
Laetitia Ky is a feminist Ivorian artist who makes sculptures with her hair. Amazing, right? I first came across her on Instagram, where I am one of her 494,000 followers. I am always blown away by the uniqueness of her chosen method of expression, and inspired by the power of her images. (Seriously: go and see that Instagram account.) I was excited to get an ARC of her book, out April 5, in which she shares her journey through essays with accompanying photographs in her inimitable style.
The book is divided into three sections: Celebrating My African Heritage, The Fight for Justice and the Equality of the Sexes, and Self-love. The essays are short, and written in Ky’s usual direct and unapologetically feminist voice. The photographs are fantastic. (I wish I could share screenshots, but you’ll just have to wait for the book.) I savoured it over three days, and pre-ordered my own — Kindle — 1copy halfway through, although tbh I’d do many things to get my hands on a hardcover copy for my theoretical coffee table.
Buy this book! Read it, then buy it for young women, and for young Black women especially. While its message will be most powerful for young women like Ky, it is also for any woman who needs to be reminded about how to be resilient in the face all that women go through. It is a wonderful celebration, and a defiant shout.
Rated: 10/10.
January 10, 2023
I've kept up to date with Laetitia Ky's hair art for a few years now, and seeing so many pictures of her art compiled into one book was already something I, and a lot of other people, would read. Add in intimate stories from Ky's life and her reflections on the state of women's rights worldwide and in Côte d'Ivoire and you get a very informative perspective on the serious issues she talks about, while seeing the incredibly unique ways she is able to portray them with her hair sculptures!
June 10, 2023
Such an amazing and inspirational book. I have followed Laetitia on Instagram for a while now, since 2022, so when I saw this in a shop I immediately picked it up. I honestly wasn't expecting to see it, especially since Urban Outfitters out of all places were selling it, which honestly made me even more happy when buying the book.
I love how the book is split into 3 major parts (Celebrating My African Heritage, The Fight for Justice and the Equality of Sexes, and Self-Love), which all focused on major parts of Laetitia's life. She goes into relative detail about her life experiences that shed light into what women around the world (but especially in Africa in this case) go through, some events that seem far away for me (e.g. FGM) but other events that seem close to me. I discovered a lot with this educational book, such as Obstetric Violence, which I knew about but not as much as I do now after reading. I also discovered a lot of self love. In the afterword, Laetitia talks about what she wanted to achieve with this book, such as changing lives of young women, which she has most certainly done.
Apart from the writing, I loved seeing Laetitia's work printed. I felt even more of a connection when looking at her work in the book rather than just through Instagram, helping me feel more inspired. I was especially touched by her hair art where she has two different bodies contrasting each other, where she's carrying a baby on her back, and also where she shows the different roles women are expected to do/follow at home.
Overall, this is a very beautiful work, aesthetic and writing wise. I 100% recommend it to women, old or young.
I love how the book is split into 3 major parts (Celebrating My African Heritage, The Fight for Justice and the Equality of Sexes, and Self-Love), which all focused on major parts of Laetitia's life. She goes into relative detail about her life experiences that shed light into what women around the world (but especially in Africa in this case) go through, some events that seem far away for me (e.g. FGM) but other events that seem close to me. I discovered a lot with this educational book, such as Obstetric Violence, which I knew about but not as much as I do now after reading. I also discovered a lot of self love. In the afterword, Laetitia talks about what she wanted to achieve with this book, such as changing lives of young women, which she has most certainly done.
Apart from the writing, I loved seeing Laetitia's work printed. I felt even more of a connection when looking at her work in the book rather than just through Instagram, helping me feel more inspired. I was especially touched by her hair art where she has two different bodies contrasting each other, where she's carrying a baby on her back, and also where she shows the different roles women are expected to do/follow at home.
Overall, this is a very beautiful work, aesthetic and writing wise. I 100% recommend it to women, old or young.
May 28, 2023
Beautiful art but lots of biological essentialism included... which is all the more disappointing when I learned immediately after finishing this that the artist is a terf D: it is always disheartening to have reproductive capabilities/physical parts become the basis of womanhood... women are so much more than that!! And I understand when you have been derided as a woman because of those things that you become more protective & proud of them as a defense mechanism, but that's one of those things we have to sit back and analyze our reactionary response to, just like this book says!
Anyways I did thoroughly enjoy the art in this book and appreciated Ky's bravery in sharing her stories of growing up in Ivory Coast, just wish she didn't literally call herself a proud terf D:
Anyways I did thoroughly enjoy the art in this book and appreciated Ky's bravery in sharing her stories of growing up in Ivory Coast, just wish she didn't literally call herself a proud terf D:
September 1, 2022
I’d been wanting to read Laetitia Ky’s book Love and Justice for a long time, and recently when she has started to get rape and death threats for expressing her views online I knew I had to support her and buy the book for herself. Now after reading it, I truly believe Love and Justice has the power to become a foundational intro-to-feminism kind of a text. Ky touches on so many different subjects that pertain to women and feminism, just a little on each one, that it’s enough for the reader to get a taste of how women can work together to liberate themselves. It should be enough to create at least a spark in women’s minds to look into the future into how we can all fight for a better world for all female people who live here. I wish she would have gone even further than she did, but maybe that can be a follow-up book with more art in the future. :)
December 31, 2022
This book was an interesting and broad look on the author’s experiences and perspective. The images are absolutely beautiful and her artistry and skill sculpting her hair is astounding.
The only thing I’d say is I would have liked a little more depth from some of the topics she covered. That said, I do realize this book is both an art piece and an actual book and so it’s hard to balance a lot of text.
The only thing I’d say is I would have liked a little more depth from some of the topics she covered. That said, I do realize this book is both an art piece and an actual book and so it’s hard to balance a lot of text.
May 8, 2022
Book received for free through NetGalley.
I came across the author on Instagram and jumped at the chance when I saw she had a book. Her images both on the social media platform and in the book are amazing, innovative, and just plain kick-ass. This is a book I keep picking up, reading a bit, and then forgetting for a bit so I've only read 35%. That said the subject matter is important and I could see buying a physical copy for when my girls are bigger. Figured I'd review based on how much I read so far but will definitely slowly read away at this for a bit.
I came across the author on Instagram and jumped at the chance when I saw she had a book. Her images both on the social media platform and in the book are amazing, innovative, and just plain kick-ass. This is a book I keep picking up, reading a bit, and then forgetting for a bit so I've only read 35%. That said the subject matter is important and I could see buying a physical copy for when my girls are bigger. Figured I'd review based on how much I read so far but will definitely slowly read away at this for a bit.
July 4, 2022
This is a fantastic book that is half personal essay and half photography, although some of it feels like a textbook or a magazine, with little callouts of blocks of texts with facts about the Ivory Coast or explanations about African culture. Laetitia Ky’s hair sculptures and modeling is absolutely magnificent, and it’s laid out well throughout the book. There’s one where Ky is lying on the beach and her hair acts as the head of the alligator — I thought this was supremely clever and quite funny. I think this would be a lovely book to keep on your coffee table. Four stars.
March 29, 2025
I don't think I've ever read an art book like this, and now I think I should more often. The centerpiece of this book were the photographs of Laetitia Ky's incredible hair artwork, hence the 5/5. I looked her up on instagram and she also does paintings, which I hope she will include in a future work. Each picture or series of pictures was accompanied by a bit about the work itself or what inspired it. Her work is genuinely thought-provoking, and I'm glad I found her through the Read Around the World Challenge.
January 18, 2025
Inspiring and insightful! Laetitia Ky's artistic abilities with her hair will blow you away! Her maturity and wisdom, and her passion for making the world a better place is admirable for such a young woman. . She has such rare insight into societal problems and is bold and brave enough to speak them out loud. It's hard to decide if this is more of an art book or commentary on our society. I am going with both!
April 14, 2022
I am blown away by Laetitia Ky's artistic abilities, her maturity and wisdom, and her passion for making the world a better place. She has such a keen eye for societal problems and is bold and brave enough to speak them out loud. Plus she just makes some truly amazing creations with her hair art! This book is worthwhile for the visuals alone, but the text and content make it even better!
January 8, 2024
Além da arte poderosa e belíssima, Laetitia Ky traz um texto acessível, com conceitos fundamentais sobre feminismo e a opressão feminina. É curioso pensar que uma mulher tão diferente de mim, nascida e criada em outra cultura, compartilha tantas experiências comigo. Apesar da escorregada na autoajuda no final, vale ler os textos e sobretudo se deliciar com o potente trabalho artístico.
June 26, 2022
love following Laetitia on IG and cool to see all of these photos and thoughts in one place
July 11, 2022
The Artwork, the activism, the creativity, the embracing of black beauty! Love it all!
December 22, 2024
Superb 🤗
April 7, 2023
Phenomenal! Courageous! Thought provoking! Inspiring! I absolutely love this book!
June 26, 2023
Beautiful! Ky's hair art is absolutely gorgeous, sometimes tender, sometimes challenging. This book is a love letter to women, written as a big sister, maybe a little (braver) sister. A powerful pep talk for being yourself.
(I know she gets cancelled -- putting it as kindly as I can -- for being anti-trans. I do not agree. She is for women, & after centuries of silencing, women need as many voices as we can hear. I believe she is also for humans, all of us/them.)
(I know she gets cancelled -- putting it as kindly as I can -- for being anti-trans. I do not agree. She is for women, & after centuries of silencing, women need as many voices as we can hear. I believe she is also for humans, all of us/them.)
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews