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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Abortion, Sexual harassment
The violence. The vitriol. Valenti tells her story matter-of-factly. Yet I grieve with her for the violence she has endured, and am reminded of what I have endured - of what all women have endured.
There were some really brilliant, well-articulated passages in this book. Valenti is fierce and vulnerable at the same time, laying bare some of the most intimate thoughts, anxieties, and experiences. Despite all this awesomeness, I was often confused by the book. I couldn't tell if it was meant to be a memoir telling a mostly linear story, or if each chapter was meant to be a semi-standalone essay. There was a lot of repetition of ideas and events with little variation. Even after finishing it, I'm not sure either way. The constant switching from first person to second person and back again irritates the hell out of me. It doesn't come across as a mistake or lack of skill, just a stylistic choice that really rankles me. So, solid three-stars; the parts I loved I really loved, same for the parts I hated.
It was a lot darker than I thought it was going to be.
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
2.5 stars
I'm not sure why or how this book ended up on my shelf, but I opened it because I've been needing some lighter fare, at least craft-wise. I wasn't hugely impressed with Valenti's other book, Full Frontal Feminism, at least not as a book marketed toward adults, and I feel similarly about this one. It's a memoir, though doesn't come across as a cohesive one, and would honestly have fared better as an essay collection. The pieces are mostly stories about Valenti's life, from being catcalled and harassed as a teenager to assaulted as a young adult to becoming a mother later in life.
My hangup about this and Valenti's other work is that there isn't anything especially new or revelatory here, particularly when we look at the larger feminist discourse of the past 10-20 years. Valenti makes valid points about likability and women's autonomy, but doesn't add anything deeper to the conversation. So we're essentially just reading stories about harassment we don't need to read because most of us have experienced it firsthand. What's the point? Which makes me think, as I thought with Full Frontal Feminism, that I'm not the audience for this. That this book would be a good addition to a primer set on feminism for younger women or those just starting to learn about feminism (white feminism, that is, which is another issue I have with Valenti's writing - there's a scene she recounts about being pulled over while giving her boyfriend head, and the hilarity with which she writes about it is jarring, given the violence a BIPOC may have experienced in the same situation).
Anywayyyyy, tl;dr if you're pretty well versed in women's issues but want to read feminist nonfic, look into work by Brittney Cooper, Tressie McMillan Cottom, or Morgan Jerkins over Valenti.
I'm not sure why or how this book ended up on my shelf, but I opened it because I've been needing some lighter fare, at least craft-wise. I wasn't hugely impressed with Valenti's other book, Full Frontal Feminism, at least not as a book marketed toward adults, and I feel similarly about this one. It's a memoir, though doesn't come across as a cohesive one, and would honestly have fared better as an essay collection. The pieces are mostly stories about Valenti's life, from being catcalled and harassed as a teenager to assaulted as a young adult to becoming a mother later in life.
My hangup about this and Valenti's other work is that there isn't anything especially new or revelatory here, particularly when we look at the larger feminist discourse of the past 10-20 years. Valenti makes valid points about likability and women's autonomy, but doesn't add anything deeper to the conversation. So we're essentially just reading stories about harassment we don't need to read because most of us have experienced it firsthand. What's the point? Which makes me think, as I thought with Full Frontal Feminism, that I'm not the audience for this. That this book would be a good addition to a primer set on feminism for younger women or those just starting to learn about feminism (white feminism, that is, which is another issue I have with Valenti's writing - there's a scene she recounts about being pulled over while giving her boyfriend head, and the hilarity with which she writes about it is jarring, given the violence a BIPOC may have experienced in the same situation).
Anywayyyyy, tl;dr if you're pretty well versed in women's issues but want to read feminist nonfic, look into work by Brittney Cooper, Tressie McMillan Cottom, or Morgan Jerkins over Valenti.
This just wasn't to my taste. It a personal memoir and I wasn't interested in all of her relationships as a young woman. But other people probably would enjoy her stories.
I wanted to know more about the time after her child was born, because I related to some of what she talked about (negative feelings, not eating, etc) and I haven't seen them discussed in many memoirs I've read.
I wanted to know more about the time after her child was born, because I related to some of what she talked about (negative feelings, not eating, etc) and I haven't seen them discussed in many memoirs I've read.
I really struggled with this book. On the one hand it was often unsettlingly relatable, occasionally very honest and brave (in particular the sections on motherhood), and the final section that was just pages of terrible things stranger have said on the internet directed at Jessica and her family was jarring and sickening. I really wanted to like this more than I did, I wanted to be 100% behind it, I wanted to feel like it was fighting the good fight but it just didn't do that for me. While I totally support her idea that sometimes the best thing you can do is embrace your victimhood instead of playing the "cool girl" this felt more like a long list of ways in which everyone she'd ever known had wronged her while simultaneously being so self decrepitating that it was hard to like or sympathize with her at all. I get that that was kind of the point, that she was so objectified from birth that she had no choice but to objectify herself, but I don't see how this book elevates or furthers or empowers the discussion of how women are perpetually objectified. Blargh.
This book is made up of small essays, and therefore some of them are much better than others. I understand why this book is important and should be read, particularly for people who don't understand the everyday sexism that women face. However for those of us who do understand this sexism AND LIVE THROUGH IT DAILY, many parts of this book had me questioning why I'm spending my free time reading about scenarios that have happened to me more times than I could even begin to count and without really providing any solutions. That being said, I found the sections covering life experiences that I have not yet (or may never) experience to be a great insight.
Era el libro que necesitaba leer ahorita y estuvo muy bien. Cumplió su propósito.