You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.59 AVERAGE
4.59 AVERAGE
Sister Outsider - Audre Lorde
Featuring...
- This book completely broke my rating system. This is because Sister Outsider was important and fantastic and deserves five stars... but I only understood half the concepts Lorde discussed, making this book not very enjoyable.
- I got the big things - Lorde talks about the intersectionality of feminism and the civil rights movement. She talks about how discounting bits of peoples' identities to support the greater good screws everyone over.
- But the smaller things (this was especially noticeable in her interview with Adrienne Rich), when Lorde pulls out big concepts and ideas, speaks in sentences where I understood each word but not the greater meaning. So much of her writing goes right over my head in a way I'm ashamed to admit.
- Still, what I understood made me think and was definitely worth the headache. She's got a stunning essay on Black women and rage I devoured every word of.
Content: thought-provoking and important. I was so interested in what Lorde had to say about race and gender and being queer. My favourite essays were Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger, which I mentioned above. It talks about self-hatred taught to Black women by a world against them and how it is projected onto other Black women and the way it hurts them and I was stunned by the way Lorde explored these ideas. I also enjoyed Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist's Response, about raising sons as a lesbian and considering how little boys turn into men. I also liked when she describes places she's visited because it's nice and interesting to read about her observations.
Prose: what I understood I loved. But there was so freaking much of it I didn't understand, which is why I didn't enjoy this. I didn't understand a single word of the interview, or of the essay The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action. When Lorde starts discussing more theoretical concepts, I can't keep up. But her essay on Black women and anger featured some stunning bits of prose, about anger as fuel and hatred being swallowed - Lorde is a poet and it shows.
Not-great things: I only understood 60%, and only absorbed 20%. I'm seventeen and stupid and being exposed to these ideas for the first time. That's most of the reason why. But, writing this as a purely subjective review - I had a headache as I read this and didn't understand everything being said and that meant I didn't enjoy it. Maybe when I'm a little older and wiser I can try again and absorb 40%.
