I started gradually rejoining the online world in 2016, after about two years away. I’d spent the six years before that being an unbearable Pollyanna, trying to get everyone to have interactions where we could find common ground and have Meaningful Discussions and for shit’s sake stop calling each other evil. I’d exhausted myself by…
Category: Feministing
Heroes Aren’t Special—Their Support Systems Are
The hero without their support network never actually becomes a hero, so we don’t hear about them. It’s the support network—the guardians who personally mentor them, the friends who pick up their slack, the teachers who provide training and knowledge—that allows someone to become a hero. If a bunch of people started telling you you…
On the Process of Coming to Consciousness
This is a paper I wrote for a course called Writing for Social Change in 2019, then presented at the Utah Valley University Conference on Writing for Social Change in March 2020. It’s 6:00 in the morning and still dark outside. The tiny white chair I’m sitting in feels like I’m perching on a wood…
Educated, by Tara Westover
Five stars, read in April 2019. There was a lot about this that was depressingly familiar to me. I grew up in the same religion as Tara, though her family believed in it much more literally than mine did. Relatedly, her childhood was more violent than mine was; my version of the story is mostly…
Moranifesto, by Caitlin Moran
Five stars, read in April 2018. It is possible that, as an American under the age of 40, I have been so deprived of sensible and ethical political discussion that what seems like earth-shattering brilliance to me is just common sense to the rest of you. But as I read this book, Caitlin Moran officially…
Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling, by Amy Chozick
Two stars, read in June 2018. Very mixed feelings. I’m giving it two stars for the interest factor, but writing this review made me angry enough at the book that I almost want to go down to one. Interesting though this inherently was, it became more and more frustrating as the book went on, and…
Imagine
We think of ourselves as civilization accomplished, but I’ve come to believe that we’re not even close to civilized yet—rather, we’re just barely out of our infancy as a species. Civilization means “an advanced stage of social development and organization,” and while the present is nearly always more advanced than the past, “more advanced” is…
Will Everyone Complaining About “Identity Politics” Please Shut Up
I don’t understand how white intellectuals are so dense on the subject of “identity politics.” Sam Harris was the first to frustrate me (he’s done it again recently), and a little while ago I read this whole piece at Brain Pickings on the tragedy of “imprisoning ourselves in the fractal infinity of our ever-subdividing identities,…
We Were Eight Years in Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Five stars, read in November 2017. This book covers the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency. For each year, there is an article Coates wrote for The Atlantic, preceded by an essay (“a sort of extended blog post,” I think is how he describes it) in which he looks back on his own work and assesses…
And Marian Was Wounded Sore
Written in January 2014. A few years ago I was watching Robin Hood with my family, the 2010 version with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. During that scene at the end where Marian joins the battle on the beach, I heard my dad—ever the selective movie critic—say something about how of course, they never would…
The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women, by Elisabeth Badinter
Three stars, read in September 2014. Now that I see how long ago I read this, I wonder if I might feel differently were I to read it again. I had left my church by then, but I don’t think I’d reached my current level of radicality—or realized that I actually don’t want to have…
Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear . . . and Why, by Sady Doyle
Five stars, read in January 2018. This book was like an electric jolt to me. I was genuinely frustrated every minute that I couldn’t be listening to it on Overdrive, and I wish it could’ve been twice as long. I don’t follow much pop culture, so although I’d heard of most of these stories in…
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Americanah, read April 30 – May 1, 2014 I go back and forth between 4 and 5 stars, I think because the ending didn’t have as much of an impact as I was expecting. But then I remember how I basically devoured this book, loving every minute that I was reading, feeling completely absorbed and…
Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess, Vol. 2: Free Women, by Jeremy Whitley
Three and a half stars, read in December 2016. Oh, man. Volume one was so incredible. I still can’t wait to read volume three, and I hope there will be more forever and ever. I don’t know why everyone had to be such a dick in this one, though. Why did Des-whatever her name is…
The Origin of Others, by Toni Morrison
Four stars, read in December 2017. When I think back on this book, the anecdote I remember is the one Morrison shares about coming across a woman near the fence on her property. The scene of their meeting is peaceful and friendly (because fences are “where the most interesting things always happen”), and Morrison’s thoughts…
We Need—I Needed—N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy Right Now
Five stars each and for the series as a whole; read mostly in December 2017. I read this series for the past two weeks of 2017, and it is so annoyingly perfect that The Stone Sky was the first book I finished in 2018. My stony, cynical heart doesn’t want to feel as hopeful as this…
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, by Cathy O’Neil
Five stars, read in December 2017. I’ve read a lot of nonfiction this year that I consider to be important, even essential to the goal of social justice. There was Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens, Susan Jacoby, and Sam Harris on the damaging nature of religion and anti-intellectualism; Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison,…
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel
Five stars, read in July 2014. For the first 50 pages it seemed like I wasn’t making any progress—it’s one of those books that looks longer than it is, so you feel like it will never end. Once I got to the last hundred or so pages, I was hoping it never would. It’s funny, really, because several of…
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Four stars, read in November 2017. Excellent as always for Adichie, and pretty comprehensive. In her advice to her friend she covers the obvious things—never link your daughter’s appearance with morality, don’t teach her to aspire to marriage, don’t give her father a parade for doing his share of the parenting, give her a sense…
What Happened, by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Four stars, or maybe 3.5, read in September 2017. I haven’t actually spoken to many people about Hillary Clinton, because I try not to for my own sanity. But when I have, and when I’ve read articles and books about her, they have almost never—the “almost” might not even be necessary—been entirely reasonable. Hillary has said…
An Autobiography, by Angela Davis
Five stars, read in April 2017. Yes, once again a post has taken me this long to write. For years I have been meaning to find out more about Angela Davis, and as so often happens, now that I’ve finally met her books I cannot believe it took me so long—or that in all my reading, she’s…
Books for People Who Wonder Why Everything Is So Fucked Up
Because that’s what I’ve been reading for several years now, but this year, it’s almost all I can read. Rather than explain in advance, because I am on the verge of developing carpal tunnel after a week and a half spent cataloging Vietnamese books for the library, I will just put this random collection here—if you’re wondering…
My Goodbye Post to Facebook
I’m reading a lot to try and figure out why the world is the way it is. I can’t say it makes me feel much better, but it does help—if you can’t fix what’s wrong, at least being able to name it allows you to stay sane. The last book I finished was The Age…
Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde
Four stars, read in March and April 2017. I have meant to read Audre Lorde for so long, and now that I have, I see the irony of it having been her prose that I read first, and not her poetry. Poetry was everything to Lorde, not just a form of art but a framework…
Women, Race and Class, by Angela Davis
Five stars, read in March 2017. I can’t believe how readable this book is, considering how dense it also is in historical detail. The research that went into it must be astounding, but it flows like a conversation with a (really well-informed) friend. Along with many subjects I am familiar with, I was absolutely fascinated by…
Dietland, by Sarai Walker
Three and a half stars, read in March 2017. This book was a strange mix of things. I loved the premise and the protagonist’s character development, but was a little confused and unsatisfied by the progression and conclusion of the Jennifer storyline. In the first place, it seemed weird to me that the protagonist was…
Chin Up, Claws Out
I went to the Women’s March in Austin, and it was the most okay I have felt since November. It was an amazing day, and I drained my phone’s entire battery in a few hours because I couldn’t stop taking pictures. The diversity, the signs, the almost 50,000 people. Seeing my sweet nieces holding up…
We Should All Be Feminists, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Four stars, read in January 2017 (though I watched the TEDTalk it’s based on at least a couple years ago). I hadn’t technically read this yet because it’s essentially a transcript of that TEDTalk. But we just got a few brand new copies of it at the library, so I took it home and it…
FABC Challenge 2016
Challenge page at the Female Authors Book Club on Goodreads. My 2015 FABC Challenge summary. 1. A work of fiction Black Rabbit Hall, by Eve Chase The Miniaturist, by Jessie Burton My Name is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce 2. A work of non-fiction Dark Money: The Hidden History…
Juliet Takes a Breath, by Gabby Rivera
Four stars, maybe five. Read in December 2016. I’d been excited about this book for a while, and there was a surprise right up front because for some reason—because of the glorious cover design—I had thought it was a graphic novel. It is not. It has a very self-published look underneath that fabulous cover, which was…
Meanwhile the World Goes On 