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livnewman's review
5.0
Lucy Ellmann is pissed and I am here for it. In this collection, she goes in on obvious targets: capitalism, climate change, misogyny, and Trump (who she describes artfully, amongst many other things, as a "lying liar"), but she also tackles airlines, travellers, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Hitchcock movies, morning routine vlogs, the whole genre of crime fiction, the titular 'things', and...all men. While I did not agree with everything she says, I don't think you're meant to, and I took the point she was making every time.
This collection is caustic, it's vitriolic, it's whip-smart, and it's laugh-out-loud funny. In particular, America being described as "the worst boy scout jamboree in history. Or jerk circle,” made me die. The best essay for me was the titular essay 'Things Are Against Us', which I loved for its poetic style and all the hot takes. I also adored the searing critique of teenage morning routine vloggers, whom Ellman rightly points out are vapid and a result of monstrous capitalism.
In the description of the author at the end, Ellmann admits she hates filling out forms and cries when she doesn't get her way, and that resonated with me deep in my soul.
This collection is caustic, it's vitriolic, it's whip-smart, and it's laugh-out-loud funny. In particular, America being described as "the worst boy scout jamboree in history. Or jerk circle,” made me die. The best essay for me was the titular essay 'Things Are Against Us', which I loved for its poetic style and all the hot takes. I also adored the searing critique of teenage morning routine vloggers, whom Ellman rightly points out are vapid and a result of monstrous capitalism.
In the description of the author at the end, Ellmann admits she hates filling out forms and cries when she doesn't get her way, and that resonated with me deep in my soul.
windbreak's review
challenging
funny
4.25
SOME OF THESE ESSAYS ARE SO BRILLIANT AND FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im obsessed with this woman really
olivia_grima's review against another edition
3.0
It is so hard to rate this book because i have so many opinions on it. i’ll try and keep this review short, if anyone out there is reading this. ellmann makes lots of points in every essay; most from an idealised society where everyone is like her and has the same opinions. i get the impression that she believes that all of her opinions are correct and she is not generalising. this book had a lot of feminism which i love, but it is not every man’s fault for the extremes which involved men in the past, and have changed the world forever, and not all men today deserve to be blamed for that. also some women aren’t morally good, like how some men aren’t morally bad. if you get what i’m saying she generalises and oversimplifies lots. there are specific essays which i loved and hated. my opinion on this book changed based on what point i was in reading it. i enjoyed it once i accepted it for what it is. she made some valid points across the essay though, as well as ones i didn’t agree with. there are a fair amount of contradictions: basically the whole lost art of staying put essay is about staying at home and there is rarely a reason to travel for recreational purposes, but then she dissed girls for staying at home and called that sad in morning routine girls? the essays i liked the most were three strikes, a spell of patriarchy, the woman of the house and sing the unelectric. in saying all of that, i love that lucy is in her 60s and writing fiery and angry essays and is so well informed on recent events and politics and social issues for someone her age. I think i was too young to read this and some things definitely were not appropriate. but all in all she got me to think, and wasn’t that the point of the whole thing?